Fruit that Yields - by Debra Courtney

Photo by Amelia Grace Photography

Weak people seek revenge!

Strong people forgive!

Intelligent people ignore!

 

Sometimes, before we can deal with our eternal enemy and put his evil decisiveness under our feet, me might have to repent. Owning where we are wrong and accurately judging ourselves is an act that takes us into the best things God has for us.

Uhh! I know you probably didn’t want to hear that.

Here’s a trap: “all or nothing” thinking. Suppose you are mostly right and the other person is mostly wrong? What if you are 50% at fault but they are 50% at fault? Can you do a 50% of repentance and reconciliation? No.

But you can take 100% responsibility for your 50%….and this often releases the GRACE on the other person to own their 50%.

This isn’t easy. Have you ever got into a fight where you wanted to keep at it? The hardest thing to do is to stop and disengage! If your personality is that of a verbal processer of persuading and influencing others, something inside you wants to talk, text or tweet your way into victory! But it never works. You can’t ever kill off a spirit of offence by talking, texting, or tweeting it. The wise King in Proverbs has a lot to say about how we use WORDS. Remember - life or death in the power of the tongue! Ignore the enemy. 

Have you ever encountered a spirit of offence attached to a person? If so, you are in for a season of never ending verbal volleyball. The spirit of offence never lets up.  

However, what you can do (if you so choose) is to ignore the situation. Bide your time. David ignored the deeds of those who conspired against him…..but told his son Solomon that he needed to deal with those specific troublemakers if his administration was going to succeed. Think of yourself as a combined David/Solomon. David is the guy that screwed up and gave the enemy an opportunity to injure the monarchy. Solomon is the “wisdom” that came out of that screw up (talking about Bathsheba.) Once you get wisdom (often from the consequences of your bad decisions), God gives you a season to deal with your enemies and uproot them. Solomon had to take care of a lot of unfinished business by his father David. Remember, we get to make our choices, but we do not get to choose our consequences. Been there and got the T-shirt myself!

“…Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. I’ll do the judging, says God. I’ll take care of it.” Rom. 12:19 MSG. We can only surrender and let the Spirit of truth living inside us deal with the offences and the offender. We can’t do it in and of ourselves. However, there is always the prospect that God will take matters into His own hands and overcome evil by visiting it with an ax. Isn’t that the point Jesus made about the unfruitful tree?

Jesus taught that an unfruitful tree may have a delayed execution, but, if it persists in its unfruitful state, it will be uprooted. What if God does that with the areas of our lives? He “digs around us (the tree)” so to speak, but after a while, if things don’t surrender or yield to the master, He uproots it. We must water our roots with the WORD before the tree grows!

May we have deep roots in the reality of who we are and whose we are. That we not only love much but love well. Love appropriately in sincerity and intellect.  Being bountiful in fruits from the soul; making Jesus Christ attractive to all with whom we will encounter this year.

Be fruitful.

"The Wink! Eves' Rip Off - Part 1" by Debra Courtney

“What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of [earthborn] man that You care for him?” Psalm 8:4 AMP

I am amazed at the extent and tenacity of how badly the enemy wants to violate and destroy especially the female gender.  He has been planning and plotting our destruction sense the day we were born.  He has watched our every move, mood, and conversation with wanton eyes and straining ears.  

He has great passion and unlimited perseverance to each detail of mine and your life, so that he knows what buttons to push, buttons of anger, desire, betrayal, lies, contempt, and deception.  Satan lusts after us.  He uses others to fulfill his plans to deceive us and trap us to exploit us. 

Desire can be a tool used in the form of manipulation.  The power of suggestion is a very powerful manipulative force.  Suggestion has so many faces, such as desire, jealousy, and envy. 

I grew up seeing a woman trying to complete her husband.  A lot of us think that we need men to complete us; they cannot and never will.  Only God can complete us. 

God saw that Adam was incomplete.  He needed a help mate.  Woman was created to complete man’s purpose, not to complete his person.  Adam was already created as far as a man could be created.  When God finished forming the dust of the earth to form Adam, the creation of Adam was complete.  God was done with Adam.   

However, there is a special enmity, a special conflict between the woman and the enemy.  There is a special warfare.  The enemy is especially attracted to woman.  Every soul birthed comes through us.  We birth the very thing that is to bring Glory to God, and the enemy wants it with every fiber of his being.  He knows that we were designed to bring forth humanity that is God's special creation of all creation.  

If we understand how very, very important this is to God, then we especially need to be on guard against the enemies seeking whom he may desire.  Yes, it is man who plants the seed, but it is the woman who is designed to bring forth the seed, the baby, the human soul to praise and glorify God.  As we grow older through adolescence and teen years, the enemy cleverly watches us, being so “nosey” in everything we do and say. 

Discern your words.  They are a powerful force that calls forth your future!  Whether you know it or not, you are calling things that are not as though they were.  

Our eternal enemy patiently stalks us.  He is very patient.  We have to learn how to outlast the enemy.  How we do that is to be more patient than he is.  At the right time, he can subtly sabotage us to meet his vision instead of God's vision.  If we allow him to do that, we have a great problem. 

Jesus talked about the cares of this world in Matthew 13:22 says, “As for what was sown among thorns, this is he who hears the Word, but the cares of the world and the pleasure and delight and glamour and deceitfulness of riches choke and suffocate the Word, and it yields no fruit."

Be a good fruit bearer!  Watch out for the wink!