Day 288 - The Pine Tree

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength (Vol. 1) - # 300

         

Michael’s book is available through:

ABIDING LIFE MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

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This blog began back on September 5, 2012.  This is the 300^th weekly post (save a couple of misses for one reason or another).  The title for the week is appropriate since we have oround 20 giant pine trees in our yard (almost 2 ½ acres in the country).  I’ve never had to resort to eating the pine needle tips, and the squirrels do a great job munching away!  But the Truth Michael presents is a wonderful illustration of the power of God.

I can relate in one way…  When God called me to be a minister, I asked Him, “How?”  He said, “I will show you Truth, teach you Truth, lead people to share Truth with you.  All I ask is for you to go and share what I bring your way.”  That was almost 40 years ago.

“The Pine Tree” is about Believers being available, and God bringing His fruit to bear through us as Believers.  God is up to more than we can ever imagine day in and day out.

DAY 288

The Pine Tree

So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. –Matthew 7:17

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. –Romans 7:4

In the spring the tips of the needles on a pine tree are nearly blue and are young and tender. Did you know that you could actually eat those tips? They are quite nice. The giant pine is so strong, so majestic; it can withstand the greatest storm. Yet when it is growing, it is tender enough to offer nourishment to man from a source not normally thought of as nutritious. So is the believer: strong in Christ, but in a place of growth very tender. I have seen others, as well as myself, so gentle in times of growth; in these times we offer others the most nourishment, and from a condition wherein we did not think nourishment could come. Did you ever imagine that our loss, our suffering, and our stress could actually feed the family of God? It does!

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        

Red – GP, Greatest Promises

Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory

A little pastoral insight: back in 1988 I was at a conference in Dallas, Tx, and went to a cafeteria for supper one evening between the afternoon sessions and the evening one.  The tables were so close together that I could have reached across the “aisle” and taken a bite from the folks’ plate next to me!

It should not come as a surprise that I could hear everything the two people were saying.  Interestingly, one said to the other, “I wish I had some sort of ministry.”  As is often the case with God, He had just brought two verses before me a few days before…2 Corinthians 1:3-4.  I interjected with as much apologizing as I could, “Have you ever been comforted by God in any event in your life?” They said they had.  I said you have a ministry.  And shared the passage with them.  I don’t know all that God did with that intersection of 3 lives, but I have been blessed these 30 years with the memory of how with God “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28).

2 Corinthians speaks straight to the point Michael mentions in this day’s writing.  So, we can all say without any hesitation, “Every Believer a minister.”  And such is the truth in our being “strong in Christ, but in a place of growth very tender.”  Amen.

With “our loss, our suffering, and our stress” God can “feed the family of God” through us.  That is bearing fruit to God.  Hallelujah!

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NOTICE: another blog on Michael Wells’ book, Sidetracked In The Wilderness, called Getting Out of the Wilderness.  You can access by logging onto www.leemcchristianministries.blogspot.com

Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

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