Jill Briscoe, noted author and international speaker, was once asked what she saw as her life’s greatest mission. She answered that her life’s greatest mission is “to figure out what to do every day in my life – as ordained by God – and then to do it.” Jill knows there are many things to do in life that are not ordained of God, which is why we must be single-minded.
To be single-minded as I embrace God’s purpose for my life means that there are times I have to just say no . . .
to an invitation to join my friends for coffee,
to an offer for a lucrative job,
to a long weekend . . .
To be single-minded as I embrace God’s purpose for my life means there are times I have to just say yes . . .
to less sleep and more prayer,
to less TV and more study,
to less work and more worship.
Have you been making fruit-bearing more complicated and difficult than it is? Have you worn yourself out until you are discouraged over the lack of fruitfulness in your own service and resentful of others for the fruitfulness in theirs? Then I have wonderful news for you! You can relax! Not only are you freed from trying hard to bear fruit, you are freed from trying at all! That’s the secret!
As simplistic as it may sound, fruit is produced on a branch that is attached to a vine. Jesus clearly told His disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5, NIV). So there is no guesswork about our position in His illustration. For a branch to have fruit-bearing potential, it must be alive. Since it has no life of its own, it must be organically attached to the vine so that the sap, or life, of the vine flows up through the trunk and into the branch. Fruit-bearing is all about being connected to the Vine. The branch bears the fruit, it doesn’t produce the fruit.
The power in your life and mine that results in blessing is in direct proportion to the extent that you are willing to die to . . .
your own will,
your own goals,
your own dreams,
your own rights.
It’s what Jesus meant when He challenged His disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” However, before you get too hung up on the cross, don’t forget — after the cross comes the resurrection and the power and the glory and the crown! Jesus kept His focus on the joy of abundant blessing as He “endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2, NIV). Because Jesus was willing to die, He was blessed by God with a position of power and authority at His right hand.
If blessing is in direct proportion to a willingness to die to self, how blessed are you?
The principle that suffering leads to glory is illustrated in Scripture by a vivid description of clay on the Potter’s wheel – clay that was once cracked, shattered, and broken, clay that was totally useless and ugly. The Potter took the clay and broke it down even further, grinding it into dust then moistening it with water before He put it on His wheel and began to remake it into a vessel pleasing to Himself. The cracks and chips and broken pieces disappeared as the clay became soft and pliable to the Potter’s touch.
But the clay was still soft and weak, the color dull and drab. So the Potter placed the vessel into the fiery kiln, carefully keeping His eye on it as He submitted it to the raging heat. At a time He alone determined was sufficient, the Potter withdrew the pot from the furnace. The blazing heat had radically transformed into a vessel of strength and glorious, multicolored beauty.
You and I are just little clay pots destined for glory!
