Finally

I took a trip back to the U.S. in July/August that lasted almost 4 weeks. I got back on Aug 4th. My wife told me that it rained almost every day that I was gone. This kept her and one of my sons from having to water the yard by hand throughout the time I was gone. This was a blessing. In Mexico most homes don't have enough water pressure to even run a water sprinkler effectively. Instead you either, 1) pray for rain, or 2) water by hand. In our case, we take a kid's swimming pool and fill it up with a water hose and dump it on the backyard. Primitive? Yes. Less Time consuming? Absolutely. It just requires more effort than enjoying the ongoing rains we get this time of year.

We'll, as the story goes, when I got back on August 4th the rains suddenly stopped. It rained practically  everyday when I was gone and when I get back the daily rains cease for 2 weeks. Everyday I prayed and waited for it to rain and nothing happened. In the silence of my heart I finally said to the Lord, "Lord, I always ask you to make it rain when I need to water the yard and you have answered several times. This is my final day of asking. If you don't make it rain today I am going to have to start watering on my own. I have turned to you for this Lord. This is my last day of waiting. The grass is dying. It needs water today."

Well, that same day, the very day I felt that my time of waiting had to finally end, the rains started and it has rained at least an hour almost everyday for the past week. The grass has been restored and is filling back out again.

When I see things like this happening I have learned to ask the Lord, "Lord, what it going on? Is there something you are trying to teach me spiritually through natural things? What is it? Is this just nothing or is there something to this?"

This is the response I believe I received from the Lord. Take a look at Acts 16.

"Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.' She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, 'In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!' At that moment the spirit left her." Acts 16:16-18

It's pretty straight forward. Before God could set things in order he had to wait for Paul to get fed up with the status-quo. When he finally got troubled to the point that he would take action, the Kingdom of God came forth and the will of God was fulfilled. Let's look at another example of this spiritual dynamic: Jesus and the clearing of the temple.

"When it was almost time of the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" John 2:13-16

Let's put this into perspective. Most present-day historians and theologians believe that Jesus was crucified and buried at age 33 simply because Jesus began his ministry at age 30 and the Gospel of John accounts for 3 yearly Passover feasts (John 2:12-16, John 6:4, John 11:55). Whether this is true and can be proved is subject to debate. But let's just say for a minute it is true, that the cruxificion of our Lord took place at age 33. Per the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the clearing of the temple occurred just after Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the shouts of "Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest." This occurred just prior to his cruxificion. This tells us that Jesus had attended Passovers before and obviously had witnessed the obvious mismanagement of the things of God. This wasn't the first time he had witnessed "merchandising" going on in his Father's House. 

Joseph and Mary had attended Passover with Jesus ever since he was a little boy. When they returned from Egypt they settled in Nazareth, a roughly 70 mile trip from Jerusalem.

"Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom." Luke 2:41

Jesus was in Jerusalem with his parents every year for Passover. In fact, the law required that they appear at the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year, not just once.

"Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover), the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacle. No man should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you." Deut 16:16,17

I am assuming Joseph attended all three feasts on an annual basis. That means Jesus was in the temple three times a year. Let's just assume they had moved back to Nazareth from Egypt by the time Jesus was 10 years old. 33-10=23. That means from age to 10 to age 33, a period of 23 years, Jesus was in Jerusalem for the three aforementioned feasts at least 69 total times. That means he had witnessed merchandising in the temple dozens of times in his life. Yet he didn't clear out the money changers until close to the end of his life, just prior to his cruxificion. Why? Why the wait?

I think he finally got fed up. I think he had come to the end of his rope with this situation and responded in kind. I think he was finally boiling over. I think Paul finally got fed up with the demon in the slave girl and took authority and walked by a greater measure of faith. He had finally had enough. Jesus had also finally had enough. 

Over the past months I have been coming to the place where I have finally gotten tired in an area. I am finally tired of spiritual fellowship that is devoid of power and prophecy. The only reason anyone listened to Jesus' teaching and doctrine was because he was both prophetic and powerful with regards to signs, wonders and miracles. The beginning of his ministry was marked by such things as turning water into wine and prophesying to the woman at the well. These types of experiences are what should mark the church. Today in most fellowship circles these are uncommon occurrences.

Our faith is to rest in the power of God (1 Cor 2:5) and our lives should be marked by the power of God (1 Cor 4:20). Scripture is clear about it. We have to find our way in this. The power of God manifests with greater ease when the body is allowed to be the body. That means people are allowed to function in their gifts. What I have learned over the past 17 years is that quite a number of bodies of fellowship don't permit the body to be the body, to allow fellowship to center around everyone being equipped for and participating in ministry as God moves among us.

"...so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully." Romans 12:5-8

The scriptures say, "let him, let him, let him." "Let him do it, let him do it."  It's repetitious in the above verse. This is very applicable with both the gift of the teacher and the gift of the prophetic. The scriptures say.....

"...if it is teaching, let him teach." Romans 12:7

"...by this time you ought to be teachers." Hebrews 5:12

If someone is a teacher they should be allowed to teach as long as their doctrine is accurate. Why? Because most often the best teachings are the ones that come unplanned, straight out of the heart, off-the-cuff by shooting-from-the-hip at a moment's notice. Depending on the size of a body of believers in a meeting you may have anywhere from 2 to 10 teachers in a room, maybe more. There has to be a liberty in the Lord for anyone to teach at a moment's notice as long as it fits with the order and flow of what the Lord is doing in the meeting.

What about prophecy? I am not talking about the office of the Prophet. I am just talking about the general flow of prophecy in the body. Do you every wonder about this, about why you see so little if any of it in the church today?

"Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged." 1 Cor 14:29-31

"...be eager to prophesy..." 1 Cor 14:39

First, we should be eager to prophesy. And secondly, we should experience seasons of prophecy. If we are not, something is wrong. It's one thing to believe in prophecy for today. It is another thing altogether to emphasize, equip and watch people actively grow in it. Yet it is very rare for church bodies today. Very rare. Yes, your church may have had a prophet come in for prophetic ministry. But God wants more than the Prophet prophesying. He wants the Prophets to equip the people to prophesy. The gift of the Prophet is an equipping gift. Everyone is to prophesy. God wants us all prophesying.

This only comes as apostles and prophets equip the church foundationaly for the work of the ministry. Read 1 Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 2:20, Ephesians 4 and the entire book of Acts. The scriptures are stunningly clear on this dynamic.

I think I have come to a point in time where I have realized the "spiritual grass" has to be watered today. We are the grass and we need to be watered by the washing of the water of his word.

"A voice says, 'Cry out.' And I said, 'What shall I cry?'
'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are as grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40:6-8

"Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the the word." Ephesians 5:25,26

Things have to change. I have got to pursue this. And I believe the Lord is trying to bring his entire body to this point, a place of finally wanting things more and more as they should be.

Be Blessed,
JEB
http://www.miraclesinmerida.blogspot.com/

Know and Understand

The Lord told the prophet Daniel something very profound when he said:

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

"Know and understand...." Daniel 9:25

The prophet lived a life that was saturated in dreams, visions and spiritual happenings. Many were his own while others where received by those around him. Nebuchadnezzar's dream of an enormous statue, Nebuchadnezzar's dream of a tree, the mysterious hand appearing before King Belshazzar and writing on the wall, Daniel's dream of Four Beasts, his vision of a Ram and a Goat, the Seventy Sevens, and finally Daniel's Vision of a Man. All of these things were profound. And all of them required not just knowing but understanding.

Understanding has two applications in scripture. One is the unfolding of plans and strategies as it follows the wisdom that God gives us. I wrote about that in detail HERE.

The second application of understanding is simply this: to interpret that which God has already spoken. King Nebuchadnezzar knew what he had dreamed in Daniel 2. He just didn't know what it meant.

"....Nebuchadnezzar said to his astrologers, 'I have had a dream that troubles me and I want to know what it means.' Then the astrologers answered the king in Aramaic, 'O king, live forever! Tell your servants the dream (knowledge), and we will interpret it (understanding)......The King replied to the astrologers, "This is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me what my dream was and interpret it, I will have you cut into pieces and your houses turned into piles of rubble. But if you tell me the dream and explain it, you will receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. So tell me the dream and interpret it for me." Daniel 2:3-5

Do you see the dynamic? It is one thing to know what the Lord has said. But it is another thing altogether to understand it. Knowing and Understanding are two different things. Even the wicked know what God says at times. The difference often between faith and unbelief is understanding that which already has been said. That is where the real reward is...in understanding.

"Jesus replied, 'The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's hearts have become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them." Matthew 13:11-15

Jesus himself drew the distinction between knowing and understanding. The wicked at times know what God has said. But they never understand it. Understanding is a sign of growth in God. It is a sign that God's work is progressing in our lives. Proverbs speaks often of the man of understanding.

"...though is cost all you have get understanding." Proverbs 4:7

Pharaoh knew what he had dreamed. He just didn't understand it. Only Joseph could interpret it. Only Joseph could understand it. Interpretation = Understanding. Because Joseph understood, because he could interpret, he was rewarded. Nebuchadnezzar promised death to his astrologers if they failed to interpret/understand and at the same time he guaranteed wealth, honor and riches to those that did.

I am not advocating materialism. I'm preaching provision. God's provision rests in the laps of those that both hear and understand. Remember, God showers his people with riddles as he speaks to them. He always has.

"When a prophet of the Lord is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles." Numbers 12:6-8

Yes, the Lord often speaks to us plainly. But he also often speaks to us in riddle form that requires interpretation and understanding. Daniel had to interpret the writing on the wall even though everyone "knew" what the words were. We need to both know and understand when the Lord speaks through symbols, riddles, types and shadows. We need to Know and Understand.

Be Blessed,
JEB
http://www.miraclesinmerida.blogspot.com/.

Without Ceasing

In the summer of 2008 the Lord moved my family and I to San Antonio for a two year stint to finish prepping us for our move to Mexico. We moved there via a management transfer with my company at the time, Sam's Club. As our time in San Antonio continued to unfold I ended up having a run-in with my boss at work. She accused me of doing something I did not do and it became obvious in the course of time I was being pushed out, ableit by the Lord. Believing that the Lord had told us that we would only be in San Antonio for 2 years, and seeing that I may not make it the full two years in San Antonio with Sam's, I started looking for another job where I could make comparable money.

In the course of time I realized that this was God's will. He opened a door for me to go to work in sales for Frito Lay in our final 8 months of our time in the U.S. The Lord had a very specific reason for doing this although I did not realize why until this afternoon.

Typically my prayer life has centered heavily around spending large amounts of time in prayer and study in one sitting and then going about my day full force. To explain this in a physical parallel, this would be like someone eating only one large meal a day and then not eating another bite of food until the following day's large single feast. It's just been the way I have functioned over the years. I know some people say that they pray throughout the day. I have never been one of those people. I will sit down and pray for 2 to 4 hours at a time and then if I do pray at another time in the day I just pray in tongues or at very specific breaks of time. But never in a conversational pattern throughout the day.

This is not to say I haven't had conversations with the Lord or meditated throughout the day. I do. But I typically wouldn't pray about every step I took. I did that before I stepped out of the house and then I would go all-out while trying to be discerning as I went along. Well, this was why the Lord sent me to work for Frito Lay. He was trying to break me out of the deficiency of this pattern by eating smaller meals throughout the day instead of one large meal in the morning with a couple of very small snacks in the day. Let me explain how.

When the Lord opened the door for me at Frito Lay I was hired in as sales rep. Starting out in this job, your primary responsibility is to cover sales/delivery routes for the other reps that are on vacation or leave-of-absence. It's sounds easy on the surface and the base pay is good for what you do. But the job has many difficult variables that I've never experienced in any job I have ever had. Right after I started my immediate supervisor told me that this would be the toughest job I would ever have. He was right. Let me explain why.

• Frito Lay pays their sales reps a base salary plus variable-over-time (VROT). VROT is calculated as your base salary divided by all hours worked that week, divided by two. This determines your wage rate for every hour worked over 40 hours. There is no time-and-a-half for Overtime with VROT. This means the longer you work, the less you get paid per hour of overtime worked. This means you become cheap labor. The longer you work the less the company has to pay out in labor per man hour. This means they give you an extraordinary amount of work each day/week and there are no state or federal overtime laws regulating how much work they can dump on you. 
• Your normal work load keeps you in the field at least 60 hours per week with some holiday weeks easily taking you over 70 hours. I had one week where I worked over 70 hours in 5 days. One of the reps that I trained with worked 80 hours in 5 days.
• The average sales route has 10 to 12 deliveries a day, each taking at least an hour on average. This does not include your drive time to and from the plant across town in traffic plus your drive time to and from work in your own vehicle.
• Covering routes for other reps means your routes change every week. This means you have to learn a new route every week. This puts you in different geographic areas of the city each week. It feels like you are starting a new job every week. In fact, you are starting a new job each week, week-in and week-out.
• They don't provide you with GPS. You work everything off of your own maps that you provide for yourself after you get home from working your 70 hours.
• Every delivery truck drives differently and many are built differently. Just when you get used to driving one truck they put you in a different one. And the backs of the trucks are made of aluminum and don't have heating or air conditioning. This means that between deliveries you are either sweating to death in your polo-shirt and dress slacks or you are freezing like a pop-sickle. 
• Driving safety is a major company priority and liability. This means if you get in a wreck you are probably going to be looking for another job right after you get back to the plant. The risk is high.  
• All retailers (large and small) have different check in procedures. Target, Valero, Exxon, Sam's, HEB, Costco, all local mom and pop gas stations and grocery chains, .........They all vary and all have their own cut-off times for delivery. If you are not familiar with their systems it can set you back substantially.
• Every manager of every store can impose certain check-in and delivery stipulations beyond company policy. This means that two Exxon managers may have two different ways of checking in based on their personal preferences.
• When you do show up for delivery you may not get checked in right away, losing precious minutes to get through the rest of your route.
• Most employees that work in receiving departments of food retailers have poor people skills. That is why they have been moved to the back of the store....so they don't have to deal with the public. That means when you show up they treat you with very little if any respect.
• You are constantly rotating dated product on the shelves seeing as you are selling food items with sell through dates. Most of the routes that I covered for the full-time reps on vacation or LOA were neglected with regards to product rotation. This meant that I had to report back to their supervisors that their routes were not being properly managed. And then guess who had to spend extra time on each stop fixing and rotating all of the dated product? That would be me. Almost every bag has to be touched, popped and laced on the front row. It's very tedious once your start merchandising. It's boring and mind-numbing work.
• Products are often displayed in each store in unknown and unfamiliar locations. Every time you show up at a new location you have to spend valuable minutes locating displays and shelves, locating your product because this is not your usual route. It's like cooking in someone else's kitchen every day and asking, "Where do you keep the steak knives? Where do you keep the salt? Where do you keep......"
• You are having to order for each store for the following delivery without any knowledge of their selling patterns. Each store has different sell-through patterns on various products and the ordering system Frito Lay gave us to use on our handheld computers was often unreliable and useless in forcasting sales trends and ordering requirements.  
• It's overall physically rigorous. You move around hundreds of pounds of freight every day. You are constantly moving from standing back to kneeling back and then back to standing positions while stocking. You are up and down all day long. You are constantly on the move. In the San Antonio plant we had 150 sales reps total. 148 were men.  After I started I lost close to 10 pounds. My immune system was severely challenged for about 4 weeks. Every time I blew my nose blood would just spurt out from the sinus infections I had contracted while working.



Fun for who exactly????


The job had nothing but obstacles, obstacles, obstacles. The stress was unending from week to week. Never had I needed God more in my work from situation to situation, moment to moment, delivery to delivery, day to day, week to week.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful." Hebrews 12:11

The pattern of familiarity that develops in most jobs was gone. Just when you would get used to the nuances of one sales route the company would move you to another one with a whole new set of obstacles and challenges. The pay was great but the stress and demands were unending. You could never get into a pattern of predictability and it was frustrating for me beyond anything I had ever experienced in any job (Olive Garden management, Real Estate Sales, Sam's Club Management). The sales managers were constantly on us to meet ridiculous corporate sales quotas that were being set by home office in Plano, TX. The hours were incredibly long. And to top it all off the plant was on the other side of the city from our home meaning I drove to and from work at least 30 to 45 minutes one-way.

I could just keep going. I was grateful for the pay. I was grateful to have a job. But the job was mind-numbing and difficult in just about every way imaginable. At 40 years old I was feeling physically outmatched for the first time in my work life. I try to stay in good shape by running and swimming but this job was whipping my back side.

Through all of this I found that I didn't have time to pray like I used to. I didn't have time to gorge on the presence of the Lord everyday, fill up and go out with my stomach full of God's wisdom and power. Granted I was off on the weekends but I was so beat up physically and mentally I just wanted to sleep in and veg for two days on Saturday and Sunday.

"We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead." 2 Corinthians 8,9

The Lord had me under a type and measure of pressure that I had never faced and because of it I found myself relying on God like never before. There were so many things that could go wrong on any given day that I could only cry out to the Lord for deliverance from day to day, shift to shift, delivery to delivery, check-in to check-in. I found myself praying about things all of the time throughout every day. Truck safety, traffic, knowledge of routes, unloading of freight, check-in efficiency, favor with managers, favor with employees working in receiving departments, stocking proficiency, merchandising efficiency, ordering efficiency, meeting sales quotas from week to week, getting to each delivery with speed and ease, ......I found myself praying over details of my efforts on an ongoing-basis like never before in anything I had ever done.

All of this difficulty was there in my life by God's design to teach me to spread out the icing on the cake. The Lord was forcing me to pray without ceasing throughout my day. He was forcing me to change.

"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." Luke 5:16
"Be faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12
"I keep asking...." Ephesians 1:17
"And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests." Ephesians 6:18
"Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful." Colossians 4:2
"Night and day we pray most earnestly...." 1 Thessalonians 3:10
"...pray continually; ..." 1 Thessalonians 5:17

This dynamic has been critical for us in Mexico. I needed to learn this on a really deep level before we came down here. It is one of the main things we have had to learn to walk in on a regular basis out of sheer necessity. Safety in driving, finances, physical safety, protection from corruption, our immigration status, making friends, learning Spanish, speaking and communicating in every situation, paying bills, setting up our lives in every area, raising our kids in a foreign country ............All the things we took for granted in the United States we can no longer take for granted.

We find ourselves praying over things we never prayed over throughout our days and not just in our prayer times in the morning. And why? Stuff appears before us over the course of our day. Needs arise over the course of the day. The Lord shepherds us over the course of a day. Our focus is over the course of a day and throughout a day. We are called to function with Him over the course of a day. Psalms 23 bears witness to it.

I normally only write in the mornings but I felt that the Lord had me sit down this evening and put this out there, prophetically if you will. If you find yourself reading this in the Lord, and you have yet to have this worked into your life, then the Lord is going to bring a change in the circumstances of your life to bring about this level of relational prayer and faith. Changes are coming to the Body of Christ throughout the world to increase our intimacy and faith in God. And this will be a good thing in God.

Be Blessed,
JEB
http://www.miraclesinmerida.blogspot.com/

Aroma and Bouquet

I used to be a sales manager for the Olive Garden. One of my primary responsibilities in that job was to help educate the waitstaff to know our wine list, to be able to describe our base wines in great detail and consequently to be able to sell those wines to our customers. One of the things I would teach my waiters and bartenders was the differences between a wine's aroma and bouquet. Aromas, simply put, are flavors that the grapes absorb during the growth and fermentation process.

An example of this would be the following: If a wine orchard sits next to an apple orchard, the grapes will naturally absorb the flavor of the apples in the adjoining orchard. Another example of this could be grapes absorbing the flavor and smell of flowers as rainwater runs into the grape orchard from the surrounding countryside. Aromas are absorbed by grapes simply by being in proximity to something else. Aromas can be floral, apple, pear, pepper, ......anything that is naturally occurring in the environment.

Bouquets in wines are a little different. Bouquets are simply the flavors that are infused by man-made intervention in the barreling and bottling process. Examples of these are cedar, oak, smoke, leather, caramel, coffee.......These flavors are purposefully built into the wines by the winemaker to give their product distinct flavors and appeal. This is usually done by determining the type of wood used in the barrels, smoking the barrels, .....the list goes on.

So in summary, aromas are flavors that are absorbed from the natural world while bouquets are flavors that are man-made and infused by the wine-maker himself. With that said, this morning I found myself reading the following verse:

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope (wait) in the Lord shall renew their strength......" Isaiah 40:28-31

All Christians are familiar with this verse. It is probably one of the most quoted passages in all of scripture. Yet when I read it I keep finding revelation pouring out of it. In verse 28 it says that the Lord never grows tired or weary and the understanding that flows from his heart and mind is unfathomable. It goes onto say that the Lord gives out strength and increases our power when we are weak. Yet it also lays down a condition. It says that only those who "hope" (NIV) or "wait" (KJV) on the Lord receive His strength, his power and his understanding in given situations.

The Hebrew word for "wait" in the King James Version is Qavah. Qavah is defined as gathering together, or to bind together by twisting. This would be like taking to pieces of twine and twisting them together to make a rope. I have also heard it described as a vine that grows up and wraps its way around a tree.

You may already know this but human skin is extremely porous. Our skin is like a sponge in a sense. When you press something up against your skin your body begins to naturally absorb components of whatever is applied to it. If you take a clove of fresh cut garlic and put it against the bottom of your foot you will start to taste garlic in your mouth within a short period of time.

Our spirits and our souls function in the same way. As we wait (Qavah) on the Lord and the presence of the Lord, as we wrap ourselves around him, as we gather with him, we absorb his nature. We absorb his wisdom, his understanding, his knowledge and his power within ourselves. Just like grapes growing on the vine absorb the aromas and flavors of that which naturally occurs in and around the vineyard, so we naturally absorb the nature of Christ as we consistently entwine with him. And as we do so we take on a divine flavor and aroma that distinguishes us from the rest of fallen humanity.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other the fragrance of life." 2 Cor 2:14-16

Be Blessed

JEB