Living with a Consumed Heart

Pouring Oil

“Give me another jar,” her voice trembled as she reached out her hand. The small flask of oil she held in her other hand was heavy with oil. She shook her head as yet another clay jar was filled with the golden liquid. Again and again, the woman stretched out her hand for the clay vessels that her sons kept bringing her. The last jar was placed before her and she poured from her flask until the container could hold no more. Finally, her little bottle of oil was empty in her hand.

She sat back laughing and then crying as she reflected on the day leading up to this crazy moment. The morning had started with a sharp rapping on her door. The greedy-eyed man on the other side of it reminded her that her husband had owed him money, and though the accident that took his life had been unfortunate, it had not cancelled his debt. The man cast his gaze over the small room with its meager furnishing before settling on her two boys sitting quietly in the corner.

“I can take your sons as payment,” he declared. It seemed like her blood had turned to ice in her veins as her mouth flew open. Instinctively, she moved between the boys and his steely gaze. Her begging fell on deaf ears as he turned away with the promise that he would be back to collect either his money or his new slaves by the end of the week.

Her husband had been a good man, though not always a shrewd businessman. When times had been lean, he had taken out loans to make ends meet. He had to make sure his wife and two sons had what they needed to live. The accident that had taken his life felt like it had taken part of her as well. Days of selling off their belongings to purchase food for her boys had left them with little in their sparse home.

Tears were not going to fix her situation, she decided. The woman quickly washed her face and gathered her boys close. She whispered prayers as she clutched their hands and walked down the dusty path to the house where she knew Elisha the prophet was staying. Gathering her courage, she knocked on the door. Though she felt out of place, the man of God welcomed them into the room where he was sitting. Her voice wavered as she explained her dilemma to the attentive prophet.

“What do you have?” he asked. She looked at him blankly and shook her head. She wasn’t sure what he meant. She didn’t have anything left, no money, nothing of any resale value. Tears stung her eyes as she admitted that she was not even going to be able to feed her children that day. She didn’t have anything left but a small jar of oil sitting on her countertop. A smile spread across Elisha’s face and he gave her the strange instructions.

The woman did just what he told her to do. She had gone to all her neighbors and family members, borrowing vessels of every size and shape. Large clay pots, small bottles, pans, bowls, anything that would hold oil was just what she wanted. Finally with a room full of empty jars, she closed the door and turned to her boys. She touched their faces gently and told them again how much they were loved. Now it was time for God to show all of them how much He loved them. She picked up her oil jar and began pouring, and pouring, and pouring.

This miracle is recorded in the book of 2 Kings 4. God multiplied the woman’s oil until every vessel she had gathered was full. By the time she had finished pouring out her oil, she had more than enough to sell to pay her debt. The price it fetched at the market was enough for her and her boys to live on for quite some time.

There are so many threads that we can trace throughout this narrative. It is a testimony to the power of God to supply the needs of those who trust Him. It speaks of the accuracy of the prophetic ministry to know what the Lord intended to do and instruct the woman on how to partner with Him. It shows us that God can use anything anywhere to do what He desires to do. Mostly though, this is a powerful demonstration of God’s love for the one who trusted Him.

But can I be transparent with you? I read these lines and I see my own story. I was that woman with two young sons, and my husband had walked out of our home and our lives forever. I wept and prayed. How could I raise my boys alone? How was I going to be able to keep paying mortgages, car payments, and electric bills without help? I felt weak and powerless in the face of rejection. The future was a fearful threat in front of me. I did the only thing I knew to do. I ran to God and found that He was waiting for me when I got there.

Night after night, I would come in from work and prepare dinner for my boys. I would listen to them chatter about their day, cartoons, video games, whatever they wanted to talk about. I would put on a load of laundry and slip away to my bedroom to pray. There on the wooden floor, I cried hot tears of desperation and whispered prayers of surrender and trust. The Lord never failed to meet me there. He came in earth-shaking power and filled my prayer closet with wonder. He held my heart and poured the oil of His presence into my empty vessel until my sorrow was eased. Then He waited while I poured out the oil of my worship on Him.

Slowly but surely, the Lord met my every need in that humble prayer closet and healed my wounded heart. I am not sure of the exact moment my healing was complete, only that He had done it Himself. All I did was close my door and pray. My desperate faith found the same glorious God responding to me that this woman with her little cruse of oil had encountered behind her closed door. This is my story.

I am not sure what your story looks like today. I hope it is a bright and beautiful place full of blessing that you are living. However, if you are wounded and wondering how life can go on, let me give you some advice. Go to your private place and close the door on you and God. When you offer Him your empty vessel, He will fill it. Trust me.

Pray with me?

Father, we come to You in faith. We know You will fill our empty vessels. We turn our eyes to You expectantly and gaze in wonder at Who You are. Come and fellowship with us deeply. You are our greatest need. We ask this in Jesus’ name.

I Will Pray

I was struggling to shake the sleep from my eyes as I started my day. I felt that I had awakened that morning as tired as when I lay down the night before. I settled at my kitchen table with coffee in one hand and my bible in the other, quietly asking the Lord to help me to reconnect my heart to His own. That is when I felt more than heard the sweet whisper echoing from my spirit, “ Will you walk with Me?”

After a moment, I pulled myself up from my seat and slipped on my shoes before heading out into the cool morning. Sunlight spilled onto the still damp grass as I walked out into my yard. Again, the whisper came, “Do you remember how this yard used to look?”

I thought about the years gone by when my sons were younger. At one time, there was a white and green swing set sitting in that yard. Little boys laughing and playing as they raced to go down the plastic slide hooked to one side had worn small footprints into the grass. Later as they grew older, that patch of lawn had been the home to a trampoline that drew both friends and cousins to play. In more recent times, my son’s first car, decrepit and somewhat rusty, had sat in the yard awaiting its sale. Though what sat in the grass had changed, the ground was still the same dirt. It had not really changed at all.

As I walked by the maple tree that sits at the corner or my home, the light filtered through bright green leaves clustered overhead. I heard it again, “Do you remember how this tree looked in the past?”

I recalled how every spring, the limbs would bud and small leaves would signal that the days were growing warmer. As summer progressed, the full branches would provide shade from the blazing sun. Many hours were spent under that tree with a book in my hand as my kids had played nearby. As autumn arrived, the leaves became brilliant orange as though the failing sunshine had found a new place to reside. Finally, winter’s cold chill found the barren wood dark and empty as it shelved snowflakes that fell from the sky. However, the tree itself had not changed. Time and season could dictate new growth and the adornment of branches, yet the tree itself was still the same maple.

I was beginning to sense a purpose to my early morning walk. Quietly I stood and listened as the Lord reminded me of countless conversations that I had with Him in prayer as I walked in my yard so many times over the years. I had walked with Him during times of sorrow and wept as I prayed. I had strolled with Him in rejoicing during seasons of blessing and accomplishments. I had leaned in close to Him whispering in supplication when fear was haunting me. I had quietly trusted Him as I was misunderstood and faced hardship and loss. I had delighted in His companionship as He had matched His pace to mine. In all those seasons of changing circumstances, the constant thread was the fellowship with God in prayer.

Just as the substance of the ground was unchanged no matter what was set on its grassy surface and just as the substance of the tree did not alter though its appearance responded to time and weather, my prayer life is the same. The substance of my fellowship with God is consistent no matter what I face or what emotional state in which I stand. It is not based on how I feel or how I perceive blessings that have come into my life. Instead, it rests on the solid foundation of God’s love for me.

God loves me. He is not tolerating me, as though I had slid under the gate because I responded to an invitation in church and had Him under some obligation to give me access to His presence. He picked me out for Himself before ever He had coalesced the rocky crust of the earth into being. (Ephesians 1:4) He loves me and He enjoys time with me.

I know that God loves me because He has demonstrated it. Jesus, the Lamb of God, hanging suspended between heaven and earth affixed to the rough wooden cross by nails, was the declaration of the Father’s love. The suffering of Jesus was the cost of my salvation, and it was a price freely given. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

This will ever be a source of great wonder to me. I mean, He is God! He is the Creator of both heaven and earth, bending reality with the sound of His voice. He is eternal in nature and holy in character. He sits enthroned on a glassy sea in heaven with the voices of angel choirs singing His praises day and night. Yet He chooses me with all my frailties and faults to be the recipient of His vast love. I had no capacity to earn such affections, yet He offers it freely. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

With such a bedrock truth as a foundation, how could mere circumstances change the reality of my prayer life in all its intimacy and promise? I will walk and pray. God walks with me. If it rains or if sunshine is splashed along the path, it cannot change that He loves me. If I weep or laugh, the substance of faith is not changed. God loves me. I will pray.

Will you pray with me?

Father, we want to fellowship with You in prayer. We realize that You are not measuring our devotion or evaluating our eloquence. You just want us to come, and we delight to do so. Thank You for Your great, overwhelming, unflinching love. Draw us to Yourself. In Jesus Name, we ask it.

Through the Word

I love the Word of God. I just can’t help myself! I open the pages and He speaks to me, the Wind of the Spirit breathing through ink and paper.

All I know of my holy God, His beauty and His character, is revealed in the Word penned by prophets and apostles who have long been standing in His Presence. Yet when I open it for myself, there He is, waiting to pull aside the veil and reveal Himself to me. He tells me of His wonderful ways and workings. He blows on the Red Sea and shakes Sinai with His mighty Presence and invites me to watch in awe as He does it.

It is through the Word that He reveals to me His mercy and the value He places on us. I watch in wonder as He longs for us so much that God the Son, God the Word, leaves angel choirs and golden streets, wraps Himself in humanity, and lies in a manger. I see Him demonstrate His kindness as He touches lepers and speaks life into tombs.

But there is one page that cuts my heart. I turn to it and weep as He reveals the heart that propelled Him to the agony of the cross – love, pure and untainted, unconditional and unrestrained. It is love that lets wicked men spit in His holy face and place thorns on His brow. It is love that takes nails through feet and hands rather than live in eternal glory without us, without me. I don’t deserve that kind of love, but I open the Word and find it was given freely to me while I was still polluted in sin.

Child of God, it is so easy to get caught up in the busyness of life that we neglect the Word. Our jobs have to be worked and our kids have events to attend. We can even get caught up in the busyness of churchy things. None of these things are wrong or bad, but they can still draw us away from time spent in the Bible. And if we don’t invest in the Word of God, we will never truly know the God of the Word.

Can I encourage you tonight to pick up the Book again? He will come and fellowship with you over it and through it. He will teach you how to live, how to give, how to serve, how to worship rightly through His Word. Read it, eat it, meditate on it. We don’t really have anything to offer anyone until we do.

Pray with me?

Father, we do not want to be too busy to spend time with You, or to share Your love with others. We do not want to offer people emotionalism and empty rhetoric. We want to offer them the real You, but we cannot truly find You apart from your Word. Anoint us with hunger for Your Word again.

Break Out!

How often I have looked to heaven and cried, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens, Lord, and come down!”(Is 64:1) I have bent myself in my prayer closet and whispered, “Lord, come and break through the darkness.” (2 Sam 5:20) There is nothing inherently wrong with these prayers and certainly we do want the Lord to come near and give breakthrough in our situations.

But lately, I have felt like the Lord wants to change my point of view. If I am always waiting for the Lord to BREAK INTO my life and circumstance, I have adopted a mindset that He is somehow separated from me, outside what I am living in and walking through. This skewed understanding makes it seem as if He is sitting far off on some white cloud watching to see if I can figure things out in my life. My experience in this salvation is vastly different.

You see, I have known Jesus to be a Good Shepherd, always close and guiding me with His sheltering love. I have known Him to be the One standing firm footed on top of the billowing waves, pulling me out of the stormy waters when I wavered in my faith. I have known Him to be the One Who holds my hand as we walked through the blazing furnaces of my hardest circumstances. I have known Him to be the wind blowing on my face in the secret place, eyes blazing with passion as I worship. No, I have never known my Jesus to be in any way separate from me. I abide in Him and He abides in me. We are connected. He is closer than the breath in my lungs. That is the Jesus I have known.

He has promised that He will never leave us nor forsake us.(Heb 13:5). He is not far away waiting to break in. The Lord is very much present in the Body of Christ and in the life of the believer, and He is still very much a miracle working Messiah. All the power that surged out of Jesus as He walked the streets of Galilee still resides in Him now. The voice that healed the sick with a word, made devils tremble in fear, and raised the dead, is the same voice that whispers in our souls.

As disciples of Jesus, we are filled with the mighty Holy Spirit. We need not wait for God to show up and deal with the needs we see around us. He has equipped us to bring hope and genuine caring to the society in which we live. We have been commissioned to represent God to the broken and hurting people we encounter in our daily lives. When we find situations that are far beyond our means to help or even know how to address, and believe me that we will find them, we have the privilege of interceding for those who are suffering.

Instead of asking the Lord to break in or break through, perhaps we should step out and be the witnesses He has called us to be. Let’s try praying, “Lord, will You send me and when I get there, just go ahead and BREAK OUT.”

Pray with me? Lord, we stand absolutely amazed at You. You fill us with wonder and joy. We are captivated at the very thought of You. We praise You. You have made our lives so much more than they were supposed to be. You have poured glory into us and we didn’t deserve such generosity.

Lord, as we look around at our community, we can be overwhelmed at the problems we see. So, Lord, do BREAK IN for those who around us, but can we dare ask it? BREAK OUT of us. Let Your light shine through these earthen vessels. (2 Cor 4:7) Let Your love be poured out of these frail vessels. Let Your miracle power be manifested through us. Let these earthen vessels leak the power of God

Imminent

Imminent. The word means showing signs of immediate occurrence, impending, threatening or looming just ahead. As a nurse, I have had to witness and inform many families that the person that they loved was nearing the end of their journey on earth. The signs were clear to my trained eye that death was imminent. The word brought sorrow and a sense of closure as they prepared themselves to say farewell.

We can look at the world around us and feel as if despair and destruction are imminent. The signs are there. News media outlets bark terror and human suffering at one another, each trying to get their opinion heard and shore up their ratings. People on social media are camped out on either side of the spectrum at this moment, from hiding in fear to angry rants about being mindless sheep. There are heartrending tidings of disease racing around the globe, earthquakes, weather disturbances, folks out of work, and store shelves empty (though I am not sure where all the toilet paper went.) It all seems a little overwhelming.

However, when I open the pages of scripture, I find that there have been other times when it seemed like hope was gone–until the Lord stepped close. A man named Lazarus lay in a four day old grave, body decomposing and family weeping, but things shifted when Jesus’ feet turned down the dusty road toward their home. Nothing seemed to have changed but there were signs of impending resurrection. Lazarus left his graveclothes behind that day. (John 11)

Jairus’ little girl lay cold, still, and breathless on her bed that day. Though her desperate daddy had run to ask Jesus for help, the moment had passed because their journey was delayed. Mom was surrounded by weeping mourners and it seemed like the funeral was unavoidable, but things shifted when Jesus continued walking her direction. There were signs of imminent resurrection as Jesus’ feet crossed their threshold. This little girl was laughing and playing before the sun set. (Mark 5)

The widow was walking through the city gates with eyes swollen from crying hot tears. Her only son was lying on the funeral bier that was being carried out of Nain by four strong men. She was broken and desolate with no expectation of her own life continuing. As Jesus saw her bent form and stopped the procession, there were signs of imminent resurrection. The mother left rejoicing as she walked home arms linked with her boy. (Luke 7)

I understand the darkness that I see around me. Jesus Himself spoke of times coming when there would be wars and rumors of wars, nations and kingdoms rising against one another, persecutions, earthquakes, calamities, and famine. It kind of sounds like He was reading the same newspapers that I have seen lately. But He also made a promise that as we see these things happening, we should start looking up. He would be drawing near, at the very door. (Mk 13:29) I realize that things look dim around us right now, but I sense deep inside my spirit that something has shifted.

Child of God, Jesus is coming near—and when He comes near, so does the kingdom. I sense an imminent resurrection.

Go to the Mountain

God told Moses, “This will be the sign I have sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will serve Me on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:12) God bound Himself to an appointment with a man on Sinai’s rugged peaks. After the promised meeting, Moses left that mountaintop glowing with glory that had irradiated him as God walked by and revealed Himself.

Jesus told His disciples, “When I am raised up again, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” (Mt 26:32) The Lord gave them a sign and promise: I AM making a mountain top appointment with you. (paraphrase). The ragged band of disciples that had spent their time hiding in locked rooms in Jerusalem left that mountain as the glorious church with hearts filled with joy and the Great Commission in hand.

There is something very powerful about keeping an appointment on the mountain with God. The mountain implies separation. We separate ourselves from the normal pace of life. We come away from distraction and whirlwind of things that demand our attention. The mountain requires we lift our eyes above where they have been set to focus on higher things.

An intentional stretching of our faith must happen as we purpose to meet with God. Coming to God is in itself a step of faith. The writer of Hebrews proclaimed, “He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

The mountain appointment draws upon the faithfulness of God Who has promised that if you draw near to Him, He will draw near to you. (James 4:8) The steps you make up toward the mountain’s summit is mirrored by His reaching down to you . Whether you mountain looks like time in a prayer closet, a walk in the woods as you commune with Him, or fellowshipping with the Lord at your kitchen table, God recognizes it for what it truly represents. You have set other things aside and made a choice to look at Him. You have come up the mountain.

You will find the summit to be a divine promise fulfilled as the Lord lingers with you there. As you listen closely, His heart’s purposes become your own. Those holy moments add significance to your struggle and promotion to your progress. God says of those who will join themselves to Him, “I will bring them to My Holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer.”(Isaiah 56:7)

God has set Himself an APPOINTMENT to meet you on the mountain! When you keep the appointment you have with God in your prayer closet. you tap into His boundless love and limitless power. As you glimpse Who the Lord really is, worry and fear will melt away. Time spent with the Lord transforms you. Joy awaits you on the mountain!

Child of God, do not neglect the meeting place with God. Do not allow yourself to be cheated out of divine encounter by distraction and busyness. Stand in His glory and let Him wash over you with revelation and purpose. A fear-filled world needs a faith-filled believer. The world needs you to keep your appointment.

Surrendering

Jesus knelt in the garden and prayed, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Mt 26:39) May I confess to you that I am challenged by this prayer? I pray something like that sometimes, but I may not really mean what I am saying. It slides too easily off my tongue, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” When Jesus was in that garden surrendering to God’s will, He was in agonizing prayer and His sweat was like blood.

Much prayer and soul searching has left me with the realization that much of my time has been spent saying in intent, “God, I want what You want as long as it lines up with what I want. God, I want more of You unless it means You will choose an assignment for me that is not what I would choose. God, I want to dream with You as long as Your dreams don’t lead to suffering. God, I want the You I have pretended You are.”

When I look back over my life, I realize that the very places that I went deeper were the times when I just surrendered to God. These have been moments when I stood at crossroads, took off the rose-colored glasses that made my plans looks so appealing, and chose to bend my will to the greater purpose of His until it buckled under His weight. He doesn’t always ask me for the hard thing. Sometimes, it is easy to do what He shows me because it doesn’t really stand in opposition to what I wanted anyway. But to be honest, sometimes the choice seems to tear my heart. Sometimes obedience has a high price.

So why choose to walk close to a God like that, One Who expects me to prove my love with obedience? Because the reward is more of Him, and He is worth more than anything else I have ever known. Because He is a Consuming Fire and I have been close enough to Him that I am marked by His flames. Because I really do want more of Him, the real God Who speaks life and light, and Whose voice shakes the pillars of heaven and strips bare forests, instead of an idol who is a weak, distant deity that changes his mind as often as men do.

The Lord IS my Shepherd, and I have found throughout my life as a Christian that I can trust Him. His paths are good paths, even when they are not easy. He always has His eyes on me for good. He loves me, even when I find it difficult to love myself. I choose the path of surrender again. Lord, I want what You want.

The Towel

Peter watched indignantly as Jesus knelt before each man in the room. The towel wrapped around His waist belonged to a servant, not the Messiah! How could the others let Him wash their dirty feet? Peter’s face was set and his heart grieved as the Lord moved the pan of water in front of him. He shook his head and pulled away.

This was Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God–not some humble servant! He remembered Jesus walking across the waves to pluck him out of the sea when his faith had wavered on the Sea of Galilee. Peter had watched milky white eyes of the blind clear and open at Jesus’ words. He had watched miracles happen through Jesus’ hands day after day.

“Is it for You…YOU to wash MY feet? You will never wash my feet!” Peter whispered through his clenched teeth.

But Jesus was not going to be so easily deterred. He looked into Peter’s eyes and quietly said, “Unless I wash your feet, you will have no part in Me.”

Washing the feet of the disciples was both a prophetic act and an example. As a prophetic act, Jesus was demonstrating the need we have to be cleansed of the grime we pick up by living and walking in a fallen world. As an example, He was teaching us to serve each other in humility.

Jesus has girded Himself with the towel and bends before the church in America with His cleansing water again. He sees how the dust of this world has clung to us and hindered the purity of our walk. He sees how the pride, the ambition, the greed, the philosophies of this age linger on our feet. He saw when we swerved toward the paths of convenience and comfort. He watched when we courted the world. He saw us tolerate what we should have cast off or cast out. Church, our feet are dirty! We need Him to wash our feet!

Let’s just go ahead and get personal tonight…child of God, your feet need to be washed. If you want to be yoked with Jesus as He moves in these last days, let Him wash your feet. If you want to be identified with Him, let Him wash you. If you value His presence more than the world’s presents, hold out your feet. If you want Him, let go of what clings to you–the distractions and glittering promise of entertainment and entrapment –and let the Man with scars in His hands wash your feet!

He is inviting you to walk with Him in deeper ways and to participate in an end times revival that will usher in God’s kingdom. The dark is only going to get darker. Jesus needs a people who are ready to show His love to the lost and dying people around you. He needs you to serve others. He needs your feet to be clean.

Perfect Praise

As Jesus rode into Jerusalem gates, He was met with passionate enthusiasm by the crowds who assumed He was coming in to vanquish the Roman conquerors. I always thought that the cries of “Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!” must have sounded somehow hollow to Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem’s gate. He knew what awaited Him at the end of the week, jeering crowds crying, “Crucify!” and Roman executioners too eager to oblige.

As He sat healing in the temple, the cry of Hosanna still rang through the air. But Jesus didn’t react like I would have. I mean, I would been offended knowing that the words were more like flattery than true devotion. Instead, He answered the indignant priests’ complaints by saying, “Have you never read, Out of the mouths of babes and unweaned infants You have made (provided) perfect praise?” (Mt 21:16)

He called that shallow endorsement, words that would prove utterly empty by weeks end, PERFECT PRAISE! That praise was immature, based on a faulty understanding of Who He was and why He had come to Jerusalem. It was weak praise, that would soon be intimidated by angry priests and the threat of Roman displeasure. Yet, Jesus called it perfect. Do you think He was hearing the echo of Heaven’s booming choirs in those uncertain voices? Could it be that He was already looking past Calvary to the three thousand soul revival as Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost? Did He hear the endless ages of the church’s heart and devotion whispering to Him, beckoning Him onward?

And if the insubstantial homage offered on the ride into town pleased Jesus, how must He see my praise today? To be transparent, sometimes my praise has been more about what He was going to do for me than Who He is. That is pretty shallow praise. Sometimes, I still wanted to worship the way that pleased my flesh instead of considering what He desired. That is pretty immature praise. Sometimes I was so worried about my dignity that my adoration has been a little mechanical . That is pretty weak praise.

Does He consider my praise perfect, calling those things that are not as though they are? I suspect He does. I suspect He looks at our weak, immature love and whispers, It is weak, but it is real. I suspect He sees our weak and immature devotion, and whispers, It hasn’t come into its own yet but it is a steadfast, burning passion.

Lord, see us with our weak, immature praise and know that we love You with all that we are. We lift our hands, though we have no palm leaves to cast in front of You, and we roar with all we are, HOSANNA! BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!!

Reputation

Now in the morning, as He returned to the city, He was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, “Let no fruit grow on you ever again.” Immediately the fig tree withered away. (Matthew 21:18-19)

Jesus came hungry to the fig tree but found no fruit. He wasn’t impressed with the tree’s foliage, symmetry, or height. He didn’t check out its shade capacity or take a survey about its popularity with those who passed by. He just wanted fruit.

The fig tree was a hypocrite! It had leaves which meant it should have figs as well. It looked the part, but had no substance. The Lord cursed the tree and it withered from the root.

I don’t want Jesus to find me looking the part (saying right sounding words, wearing a christian t-shirt, knowing the right people, sitting on a church pew) but leave my presence without what He needed.

Reputation kills.
It lacks substance.
It keeps us living on the surface.
It trades fruit for influence.
It trades God’s esteem for man’s attention.
It is a curse, withered and barren.

Don’t despise the hidden seasons when no one notices you. Do not seek the attention of those who seem to matter. Just keep seeking the face of God. Relationship is far superior to reputation in His Kingdom.

Just keep going deep with God. Roots will produce fruit.