Proverbs 31- A Women of Virtue

Proverbs 31:10-30 Ok so this scripture seems to be a bit over the top - A wonder woman - A super mom, Is it really possible, as I look around at the dust I've neglected to deal with on my window sill, I want to say no to justify myself, but I do believe it is!

How could it be though, this woman can do sooooooooo much - Well her foundation is fortified as one who fears the Lord - There she finds wisdom for everything! So is this an actual woman that the king was admiring? was it his mother perhaps? His wife?

Interestingly, there are 22 verses, and in the hebrew alphabet their are 22 base letters, This some have said is an acrostic, starting with every letter in that alphabet and kicking it off to teach and learn something, much like Psalms 119 or the book of Lamentations is. Perhaps it was used to teach young girls as they were growing how to be, what was important and valuable in a cute little package. It is said that they would learn them and pay attention to them, much like stringing pearls to make a necklace.

If we take it apart in short order we see several characteristics that stand out...

she is trustworthy, diligent, frugle, a good steward of finances and has authority with them, inner strength and beauty, knows the value of her own work, generous, giving, compassionate, tends to the needs of her family and her self (wow she doesn't neglect herself!) respects and supports her husband, woman of integrity, wise, faithful, and fears the Lord.

From these she receives honor from her husband, friends and family - children. She reaps the rewards of her endeavors, she has a good reputation that goes before her and her husband and family can excell confident of her love for them and towards them.

Those are more down to earth, for me, than considering a field and buying it, having a bustling business that sells to merchants across the seas and sewing and making clothing for my family. I desire to respect my husband, love him and give to him what he needs so that he's not at work wondering what I'm doing or if I can handle life. I want my kids to see that I am productive and able to be generous with my substance, time, and energies as well as finances, if not before them. I want a good reputation among my neighbors as kind and compassionate, as one willing to help in time of need, etc, etc...

BUT I don't think those can be truly accomplished just because I want them. I fully believe that we must have a heart for the Lord, a fear of God and a respect for His authority and a devotion and submission to Him first and foremost.

If I have that I will learn what it means to serve, to give, to love, to respect, to be faithful, diligent, generous and trustworthy. Seeking the principles of God and recognizing who He is will help to establish those things in my life and being that they are eternal and life, they will overflow into all of my relationships and endeavors.

Check out the website www.GraciousVine.com or www.JoannaFruhauf.com

Soul vs. Spirit

We all know that we all made up of three parts right? You've heard it before, heck there are companies named after it, Body Soul and Spirit. And when we hear the terms we always hear it in that order. But is that the order God wants us to live by?

Unfortunately in our world, people live satisfying the body first, with what they see, feel, taste, touch, hear and do. Most of us live in a sensory satisfied realm, and unless things give us goosebumps we don't want it. Living that way produces self centered and self serving people. If our body is our first order of satisfaction, then our soul submits to those indulgences and is trained by them and then our spirit is squashed, manipulated and eventually killed.

Much like our constitution's preamble which basically says its our right to enjoy, 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness' - Things are often, when important said in the order of importance and value. With the least valuable only being gained after the more valuable are established and the least valuable subject to or relinquished with the destruction of the more valuable.

The scriptures actually put these in their proper order. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 it says, 'And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY may be preserved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Scripture tells us that if we live by the Spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh (our body) because if we are living by the Spirit then our soul will submit to it and our body follows suit.

What does that mean though? Live by the Spirit- how? Giving your self to the things of God, to know the ways of God, the desires, the pleasures and repulsions of God. - HOW? Read the bible, as you do you will see what pleases the heart of God, what displeases Him. What is honorable to Him, what is dishonorable. What is it he smiles or frowns at, what He blesses, what He curses.

In the same way if you were starting a new relationship with someone that was to become your spouse. On the very outside of that you desire to make that one smile at you, you are fascinated with them, and want to please them, you desire to know everything about them and do things that tickle and satisfy their desires.

WELL, its no different with GOD! - But too many christians are going around satisfying themselves and still expecting God to bless their selfishness. And justifying it as if its how God wants them to live - Sorry - not so. To love God is to live selflessly for Him, then as we do we are living by the Spirit, which will satisfy the soul, which will then satisfy the Body. That is the proper and only order God ordains.

There are countless scriptures that talk about living by the spirit, that those who do are the children of God, that they are free, that they are full, that they are satisfied, and that starts in a relationship with the Lord, that says I'm going to learn about you and love what you love and hate what you hate. .. and that starts with prayerfully reading the scriptures and asking the Holy Spirit to teach you and guide you and share with you His heart.

When we do then Hebrews 4:12 will be embraced rather than repelled against, 'For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two edge sword piercing even to the dividing apart of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.'

Check out the website www.GraciousVine.com or www.JoannaFruhauf.com

What is the Incorruptible Seed?

There is something special about seeds...I can remember as a kid getting the little peat packs that you would soak in water and then add seeds too watching them grow slowly over the course of a few weeks until they were strong enough to go outside and be planted...

Jesus spoke several times of seeds. How faith as small as a mustard seed could move mountains, how seeds cast on several different types of ground were either recieved, choked out or removed, then in foreshadowing His death he said that unless a seed go into the ground and die it abides alone... and in 1 Peter 1:23 we are told that we are born again of incorruptible seed!

The thing that facinates me about seeds is that they are the promise, the potential and the genetic composition of something greater than itself!

Look at an acorn...it's just an acorn! But purposed within the dna structure of that acorn is the composition of a might oak tree that can uproot sidewalks, and tower over houses!

Seeds have the potency of big things packed in their small body!

When I was single I saw the "Incorruptibility of the Seed" very powerfully displayed in my dear 'Mama Ward'...My Great grandmother who was extremely senile...but when you mentioned Jesus, she became fully aware and able to discuss with clarity Her love for Him, Her appreciation of the scriptures, Her desire and knowledge that soon she would be with Him....Even though her outward man was perishing, including her mind...the years of diligent study of God's word and precious relationship with Christ was undiminished!

When we get the word of God in us, as that germinates and takes root within us we have the potential for great things, things that bring forth great fruit, eternal weight, glory and power.

It is amazing to me how much God desires to radically effect change in us and how that starts with Jesus (the Word of God) at work in our lives....But unless those seeds are permitted to take root, we will only have a form of religion, something that may look holy, but actually denies the power of God to work its wonder in us...

Let the seeds grow, they may uproot some other things, but God's produce is far superior to anything we can grow on our own!

Check out the website www.GraciousVine.com or www.JoannaFruhauf.com

FEAR vs. FAITH

I remember a childhood acronym for FEAR:

F alse

E vidence

A ppearing

R eal

and recently came up with one for FAITH:

F ortifying

A dventures

I n

T rusting

H im

It can be hard to make choices. They put us in a pincher hold sometimes and we feel lost, confused, hard pressed or torn. I desire to make choices based on a faith in God's provision. Yet, too often I have made choices based on fear.

Fear always seems to cause a rush to judgement, it always seems so overwhelming and a reaction to it is often where the decision comes from...Fear of failure, fear of rejections, fear of the future, fear of the unknown, fear of pain or suffering, fear of wrath, fear of hunger, fear of loneliness, fear of what others will think, fear of life. Those rear their ugly heads in so many ways...

Looking at scripture, fear of the Lord is considered the beginning of wisdom. This is a different kind of fear from what most of us base our decisions on.

Fear of the Lord is a REVERENCE of His authority. A RESPECT for that authority. A RESPONSE to that authority. Much the way we Fear Fire. We recognize its power to create or destroy - and we respect that and respond appropriately or deal with the consequences of our own foolishness.

Reverence for the Lord is to be faith based and love motivated. When we make choices based on a relationship we have with Him, on one that knows His heart, trusts Him and relies on Him to provide and protect we will make the right choices, from the right motivations...

Fear is based on our inability to control life and causes us to worry and focus on non-realities, hypothetical irrational possibilities that stand precariously on the smallest statistical possibility.

Faith, also based on our inability to control life causes us to trust and focus on possibilities and promises that have in time past proven true for those whose hearts recognize that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

They have two completely different foundations and outcomes, one is based on the absolute faithfulness of an unchanging and Loving God the other on our poor and desperate attempts to grasp at the wind.

Check out the website www.GraciousVine.com or www.JoannaFruhauf.com

Wilderness Wanderings...

I'll be speaking on Sunday about the 'Wilderness Wanderings' of the Children of Israel...

It's a daunting task, to try and concisely speak about something that took 40 years in only 40 minutes....one year a minute, talk about time flying by!

Obviously I won't be attacking it from that angle...It will be a matter of WHY were they there, WHAT was the purpose while there, HOW do we see God's abundance towards them in the midst of it, and WHEN were they going to be getting out of it?

If you know me or have heard me, I LOVE the historical aspects, but HATE the boring aspects of it if  conveyed simply as a timeline...I want to know WHY it was important to jot down and How it can radically affect change in my life!

Anyway, the wilderness is a fascinating time of GOD challenging, deprograming, reprogramming, solidifying, correcting, teaching, proving, providing, protecting, leading, establishing and loving the Children of Israel...Ever think of it that way before?  Until recently I saw it as a punishment that was horrible.... and yet, I now see it in an entirely different perspective!

I think everyone that becomes a Christian MUST go through the Wilderness Experience!  You don't get to go from Egypt's Worldly Bondage and mindset right into the Promised Land of REST!  There is a wilderness we all go through!  Moses did, Elijah did, Jeremiah Did, John Did, Even JESUS did, so why would we think we wouldn't...I've got nothing on those guys!

Been through quite a bit over the years and I determine regardless to follow the Cloud of Fury and Glory, until He brings me to a New Place....

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

Check out the website www.GraciousVine.com or www.JoannaFruhauf.com

Choking on the Prosperity Message!

In Luke 8 Jesus gives us the parable of the sower and the seeds...with different seeds growing in different soil and He compares them to different life situations.

Interestingly one of them is riches and that they can choke out the gospel in ones life...

I find it interesting that so many are drawn to the 'Prosperity Gospels', the doctrines that state 'God wants us rich' - that unless your living well, healthy and driving that nice new... whatever...you aren't growing in your faith...that one is equated with the other....that they run parallel to each other...

That's not what I read in the scriptures... Everyone that touts this also uses Hebrews 11 - the Faith chapter, and yet if they'd read to the end, they would find, people full of faith, NOT prospering in a worldly way at all!  infact their homes are taken away, they are destitute, living in caves, even sawn in half!!!! and Yet the Words God speaks of them is this, "The world was not worthy of them."  That's a pretty strong commendation and affirmation of their faith by God...

Why are so many proclaiming this kind of Gospel, when Jesus clearly stated that it is this kind of thing that will draw us away and literally choke out the Gospel?

Jesus said of the scribes and pharisees of His day, these religious leaders that assumed their wealth, position and accumulation of 'things' were connected to their pious lifestyle, "THEY HAVE THEIR REWARD" -

Sad words from an eternal perspective!

God equips those that answer the call!

It's always amazing to me to see people stepping up into a new thing...It's amazing to me when I realize how far I have climbed and how many new things I've stepped into over the years...and yet, those darn insecurities and voices that say I'm not certifiable. Not qualified.  Not able.  

I have heard in the past "God equips the called"  and though that is true, I personally know that those that He calls are not always equipped before hand.  It's on the job training and much of the training is done by God's Spirit covertly.  And by that I mean, You don't even know that you are being prepared for something for your future.

I think of all the networking I've done in the past when I was a coordinator for and international organization and the liason for chapter development, the times I worked with area hospitals and non-profits coordinating assistance for teen moms...and all of that experience is being used in recent months to coordinate some efforts to get churches networking together to build and encourage each other as they minister.

It's amazing that regardless of what has happened in our lives, good, bad and indifferent (menial) our response to it, our walk through it, can all be used by God to equip us for a greater work.

Do I still wonder if I have what it takes to do what I'm doing?  YES!  Do I get befuddled by my own insecurities sometimes?  ABSOLUTELY!  But I plug ahead looking to be faithful to what I know and what I have heard.

In re-reading the story of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, I was amazed this past week as Moses argued with God - 'I'm not able, I'm not capable, I'm not certifiable!-  I've got nothing to show for who I am - I've been in this wilderness away from the hub and happenings, the power and prestige, the activity of it all - and You want me to ...."  I CAN SO RELATE!  

Can you?  Ever feel like God has said to you GO, DO, SPEAK! 

Then you give all the excuses, the reasons the world would say that you aren't good enough, the best, the right choice?  

As you read on in the story, you find that Moses goes, meets up with his brother, and the leaders of Israel, they are all excited and then He goes to see Pharaoh.  Pharaohs response is I don't know this god you speak of...I'm going to double the labor of your people...

As Moses goes to His own people, the very leaders that were all excited to see him a day ago, are now furious with him for the trouble he brought them....Can you imagine how that might cause Moses to second guess his own calling...Can you imagine how insecure that might make him?

When we hear God  tell us to go, regardless of the hinderences, and the resistance even from those we love and know - we have to see our validation from the Lord...as we do, and are faithful regardless of what things look like, eventually the VALIDATION will be there!!!

Check out the website www.GraciousVine.com or www.JoannaFruhauf.com