Elevate dec 12

Elevate this past week,

We ended up at a story involving Jesus during his last week here on earth. I admit it's kind of a weird place to be during the Christmas celebration, but a good story is good to let her what time of year.

We were in Matthew chapter 21. In that chapter Jesus enters into the city of Jerusalem with great fanfare and excitement.
Then he goes to the temple where he forcibly removes all of the lying and deceitful light changers.
Then he proceeds to heal the blind and the lame in front of all of the religious teachers, high priest, and leading priests of the day. Their response of course was to complain that the children were singing praises to Jesus. They couldn't explained the miracles, so because they couldn't explain as typical religious people they ignored it completely.

Jesus leaves the city spends a night in a town called Bethel, and that's where we picked up the story for this week.

On his way back to Jerusalem he stops by a fig tree. The tree looked good because it had plenty of big fig leafs.when Jesus looked for something to eat on the tree there was nothing there, and no evidence of any future harvest.
(I know what time of year was, and that a full-fledged fig was not available, but they should have been something there for him to eat even though would not have been fully ripened, and definitely should've been evidence of other flowers that would eventually become the figs.)

Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died. That looked really weird to the disciples. I'm sure the leaves curled up quickly and began to fall like rain all around the tree. But they expressed how odd it was Jesus's response was one of encouragement. Jesus said if they had faith did not doubt they would be able to do things like this and much more. The "much more" was they could say to God moved this mountain and throw it into the sea and God would do it. He then continued with if you believe you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

This response to the disciples made many of my conservative/Baptist background pastor friends very nervous. Most of them like to emphasize the curse of the fig tree not the encouragement of Jesus.
Because of my past in those conservative Baptist backgrounds I had no category for faith in which God would do whatever I asked. I did have a category to be cursed for not producing fruit when Jesus came to inspect me.
The fruit that I grew up believing to be the only thing that mattered was the fruit of people accepting Christ as their personal savior. I also grew up believing that if I did not lead to other people to a saving knowledge of Christ I was of no use to God it would be cursed to continue to be useless to him in the future.
I think I was supposed to be motivated to get out and tell people that they needed a savior.

What I have come to believe it realize is that the fruit that God is looking for comes in a wide variety of options. The end result is still that of producing aspects of God's kingdom, but the growth that occurs prior to the ripening of the fruit is many and varied.
In producing food for God's kingdom we need to be able to hear God's voice. Hearing God's voice is more than what I grew up believing it to be. Hearing God's voice used to make me very nervous. Because I was told that God spoke through his Word/the Bible and I spoke to God through prayer. It is important that I understand that until I did everything God had Re: spoken to me there was no need for him to speak anything more to me.
Not having a category for God to continue to communicate to me cause me to develop a separate category in which I took credit for the things I was doing for God's kingdom. When I worked on of the strengths that God had naturally gifted me with It was my job to turn the credit back to him. If God was not speaking to me in giving me the ideas and opportunities that I was coming up with, then it was me and God was overseeing/judging me based on my response to whether or not he was getting enough credit for what I was doing.

I believe that God speaks.
we need to recognize our ability to hear God.
If we have category except the written Word of God for God to communicate with us, we need to develop more categories.
Here are some basic ways that God speaks.
Invitation, you see clearly in Scripture that it is Gods voice that speaks to our heart and invites us to be a part of the family of God.
Scripture, not just what is written about what we hear God say to us while we are reading.
Teachers, only here a lesson or a message that seems to have been presented as though we were the only people in the room. (Some preachers want to take credit when he passage that they speak on means so much to you,stay away from those preachers)
worship, the songs lyrics, phrases,music,any one of those things and many others God can use to speak specifically to you.
Conviction.guilt is not a part of Gods tools in bring about conviction of sin,He speaks with Love and kindness in the desire to have you clean is because it allows His voice to be heard more clearly ...and He love to tell you He Love you.
Burdens, people he brings to your mind to lift up in prayer and to share the burdens of.
Promptings, these are words whether written or spoken and encourage other people, or acts of service and kindness that allow other people to know that God cares for them.

One of the main things God loves to tell us and all of his creation is how much he loves them.
Many times the words I hear from God to share to others are just that simple. There are different ways that God wants to and let his love be shown and heard.

Don't be afraid to let God speak.
in hearing God speak we will participate in producing fruit for the kingdom, having faith without doubt to do great things, and prayers are answered no matter what we ask.

I'm comfortable with that.