Today is the day............

Blessings everyone and welcome back to Fertile Hearts where we are being fruitful and multiplying. Today I have a, a new message. The message for today is a reflection. It's a question. I wanted to start today off with a question, and the question that I wanted to start it off with is, how am I doing this? There was something that was called to me, and that really stuck with me when I heard that. I'm like, you know what, this is something that I need to ask myself in the morning, in the daily, as often as needed. Like, how am I doing this? It helps to bring awareness. And a lot of times I'm trying to control how I do things, but not actually aware of actually how I am currently doing things. So it's causing a pattern where I'm like, okay, now I'm able to be more aware. And as we are going deeper into our reflection, our devotion, and our strategy and approach, this is an approach that I want to start to implement into our daily fruitful Fertile Hearts devotion and reflection and strategy and approach. That way, when we ask ourselves questions, it allows us to be a, you know, a little bit more aware of ourselves and not so much aware of others in a way where we can't change no one. Now, we can influence a community, but we can change ourselves. So that brings back the reflection back onto ourselves to say, how am I doing this? Am I doing this in the way of what God is saying, or am I doing this in the way of what others are saying? So today for our devotion, we're going to start off with our devotion today. We're going to devote ourselves to finding life. Perfect. Finding life. Finding life. When I say finding life, that's finding Jesus. He is the life. How do we become more righteous in who we are, our character, build up our character after the righteous one, the most righteous one, the only righteous one in human? As we continue to fight our flesh, dominate and exercise dominion over our flesh, our desires, our understanding, and not, you know, lean to our own understanding, but trusting in the Lord, and that's with all our heart, all our understanding. Like, I am desiring, Lord, to understand what you are speaking, what you are building in me, what you are changing in me, and the things that you are bringing to me as well. So in John 1 chapter 5, verses 1 through 5. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And I was talking today about our belief matters. So everyone who believes— everyone, not just one person who believes— everyone who believes that Jesus, Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And so when you come to the realization and the belief— when I say realization, you realize like, I can't trust in myself. I have to seek Christ and his righteousness and who Christ is and get to know Christ more. I'm like, okay, am I walking in the way of the Lord? Um, so being born again, born of God— God is the Creator. God created— when we say, create in me a clean heart, Lord, and create a righteous, you know, spirit within me, that's being born of God. When he cleans your heart, cleans your understanding, and then you're trusting in the Lord with all your understanding, that is being born of God and believing that Jesus Is Christ. And so this is an example as we do our devotion. It was a natural step for Brett to attend a Christian college and study the Bible. After all, he been around people who knew Jesus his whole life— at home, at school, at church. He was even gearing his college studies towards a career in Christian work. But at the age of 21, As he sat with a small congregation in an old country church and listened to a pastor preach from 1 John, he made a startling discovery. He realized that he was depending on knowledge and the trapping of religion, and that he never really received salvation in Jesus. He felt that Christ was tugging at his heart that day with a sobering message. You don't know me. The Apostle John's message is clear: everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. We can overcome the world, as John puts it, only by belief in Jesus—not knowledge about him, but deep, sincere faith. Demonstrated by our belief in what he did for us on the cross. That day, Brett placed his faith in Christ and in Christ alone. Today, Brett's deep passion for Jesus and his salvation are no secret. It comes through loud and clear every time he steps behind the pulpit and preaches as a pastor. My pastor. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life. For all who have found life in Jesus, what a comforting reminder that is. Comforting reminder. Like, I really wanted to speak on this devotion as we devoting ourselves to to Christ. It's like, I'm not looking after this person to— my salvation doesn't lie in a person. My salvation lies in Jesus. Jesus is the— he's the one who came. And if it wasn't for that Christ, if it wasn't for Jesus, I would not be in the space that I am in. And it becomes like, okay, No one else can take that place when you when you are born and you have that understanding of who Christ is. Christ is the righteous one. He is the Son of Man. So I wanted to kind of elaborate over who not okay not knowledge about him. Not knowledge about him. So we can know Christ. Like we know that faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God and about Christ. So we have knowledge of who Christ is. He's our Savior. He's the Savior of the world. We can know that. That could be knowledge. That can be knowledge. But sincere faith is saying, okay, who is Christ? Let me know the word. Like greater is he and me. And when I say greater is he. When I say he, that's Christ that lives inside me. Like, as far as like how we have to speak life, he is life. So therefore, speaking, speaking about Jesus is speaking life into someone else's life. I don't want to speak anything but life. I— when Jesus said, I come to give you life and life more abundantly, so if God's giving us life more abundant, he's giving us righteousness more abundantly. He's giving us the way to speak. He's giving us the way to act. He's giving us the way to show up in this world in our human fleshly nature, as we, as we would say, but in this body. But that's why I say greater is he, because on the outside you may not, you may not, I may not look like as far as whatever the, whatever image you may have, but The thing is, it's inside of me. It's Christ inside of me. It's the word of God. It's the faith. It's it's it's that you might call it crazy faith. It is that crazy faith. That's crazy belief in Jesus is my Lord. He is my Savior. He is in me, and not just the knowledge of who because there was a point in time when I just had knowledge. Of Jesus. That's what we learn in church. We learn about Jesus in church, but in— but in God being born in God, it teaches us a different, a deep, sincere faith in Christ. So that is, we devote ourselves, devote ourselves not just to the knowledge but understanding. Creating me a clean heart, and that righteous spirit is God and Jesus' righteous spirit that we seek to have and to show up and continue to be on our guard, stand firm in our faith, and be courageous and be strong, but doing everything in love. So we thank God for, for that. So that as we are devoting ourselves, we're finding life. It's a different— it's going to be different. You have to get rid of that old life, deny yourself daily, um, and take up your cross. And follow Christ. You have to follow Christ daily. So we're following Christ daily in our devotion, finding life. Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be opened. So like I was— the prayer that I had was, you know, God, open up the heart of, you know, open up my heart of my understanding as you create it. You open it up. Um, but let me still be firm in what is inside of me. That's, I, you know, that's salvation. Let me stay with Christ as being who I look to for all my help, my guidance, my counseling, everything. He is the ultimate answer to all solutions. And that's like, if we need an answer, he, he has already gave us the answer. We just have to Find it, seek it, seek life, seek, you know, Jesus. But if we start to do things on our own, no matter how long it takes, no matter how long it takes, 10 years down the line, I want to still be, you know, Christ lives in me and me showing up as Christ has shown us to, you know, show me to show up. So that reflection for today Is my, um, I will rise above my circumstances today and dismiss the distractions. So today's reflection on reflecting on how to dismiss the distractions and the circumstances that is causing me to become lower, because I'm going to rise over those circumstances no matter what comes my way. So Philippians 3:8, yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. That's a reflection. And I was talking, you know, like I said today, the question that I wanted to implement in this is now, how am I doing this? How am I rising above my circumstances? How am I dismissing the distractions? How am I operating in dominion over the things that are coming my way? Am I exercising the dominion that God given has given us in the beginning when he said he has created us in his likeness? We so Jesus, as far as if I say greater is he that is in me, if I'm saying that Jesus inside of me and I'm seeking to be him, knowing that he suffered, I'm going to suffer as well. But at the same time. Oh, you know, reflection and awareness as far as you got to persevere through that. You got to persevere through it. And as I persevere, there's a character. That character that I'm striving after is the, the ultimate change specialist. And if I'm striving to become a change agent, the change specialist is Jesus. When he was able to change water into wine, he was a change specialist. specialist. So if I'm looking for, you know, change in certain situations in my life, to rise above circumstances or to dismiss distractions, that means I have to call on the change specialist. So yes, and realize and prioritize everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite Infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It's infinite value. Now you have knowledge, but then you have infinite value. The wealth of knowledge, you know, wealth of knowledge of knowing who? Christ Jesus. For his sake, I have discarded everything else, counting it all garbage, so that I could gain Christ. Basically getting rid of everything as far as it is, is counted as garbage. There's nothing else that could ever compare to Christ Jesus. As I gain more of Christ in my life, everything else is not— is, is prioritized on afterwards. So some of the circumstances that confront us are meant to bring about our growth. Not our failure. So this is about growth, and I like how PDI he says, you know, we grow until we go. So this is one of those things. So some of the circumstances, circumstances that confront us are to meant to bring us about our growth. So we're going to if we're going to grow until we go, we have to know. That those circumstances that we are going to have to confront are meant to be about building up that growth. So this is like, oh, it's time to grow again. Here we grow again, not our failures. Um, so it's not necessarily about the circumstances, you know, um, that we are confronting because that's what we expect. We expect to have to do, go through those circumstances. Now when it comes to failures, or, you know, It's not necessarily our failures that keep us growing. I am reminded of the day I stopped and asked God, "Why me? Why me?" That's a question. Like, why am I? Why? Why? Why me? At this, you know, at the time when God says you, you don't say why me. Until those circumstances arrived. And he was like, God, why me? But knowing the God that we serve, he's forgiving, he's good, abounding in love to all who cry out to him. So crying out to God and saying, why me, Lord? Help me to understand. Help me to stay in obedience to your discipline, your will, your purpose, your plan, and continue to build up that hope that is— you have placed on inside— you have placed inside of me. Not do nothing else. The hope that you have placed inside of me. And so his simple answer resonated with me when he said, it's not that serious. Don't take it too serious if it don't go away. Ain't no fear in us. So that's, you know, it's not that serious. He was really saying, relax, it's just a distraction. So, you know, dismissing the distractions, that's something that I'm growing in. You know, grow until you go. The distractions, it's not that serious. And then being able to practice daily, like, you know, knowing Christ, like, he's my Savior, set my mind on, you know, what is true, what is noble. He, he is pure. Then to be able to think about the purity and being born again in God and being pure based off of, you know, not necessarily the world, you know, although that we are in this world, we're not of this world. So we don't have to actually stay, you know, show up as the world would like us to show up, but we can, you know, be like, okay, this is just a distraction. I've already won the battle for you. So that's our reflection for today. But then also we want to go— we still want to apply as we ask ourselves those questions: how am I doing this? How am I reflecting over my situations? How am I devoting myself to finding life? Um, we also want to identify the strategy and approach based off of the word of God and what he has outlined for us in the, you know, today in our daily plan. And our devotion. So the strategy and approach for today is going to be questioning soul, questioning soul. Oh, and we started off with a question on today: how am I doing this? Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. I'm sorry, that brought me comfort. And just saying it, that brought me so much comfort. Trust in him at all times, at all times, you people. Like right now, Lord, I trust in you. And I'm— and I say that because when I say— when we say finding life, Speaking life, hearing life. Like God, I trust in you. I I trust in you, Lord. I trust in you. I trust in you. It's so comforting to say it and to be able to say it. So trust in him at all times. You people, pour out your hearts to him, Lord. You know what we may be facing. You know the circumstances that we have to rise above. You know the distractions that we need to dismiss. You know the priorities that we need, Lord. So we pour it out to you, Lord, and say we need your strength, we need your help, we need your word, we need your comfort, we need your peace. We need your gentleness. We thank you, Lord. We set our minds on you, Lord. We glorify your word, Lord. We reverence you, Lord. We idolize you, Lord. We dwell in you, Lord. You are our refuge. You are our strength. Thank you, Lord. So as you know, how am I— you know, like the question that came to me, like, how am I doing this? So there are questions that we long to have answered by God and circumstances in our lives that leave us wondering about his goodness. As we pray, we try to rend the heavens for an answer that will make sense of our storm. What God desires most isn't the soul with the answer, it's the one laid bare before him in a perfect dance of trust, belief, And raw vulnerability. In that moment of emptiness before your Maker, he will be your safe place. Pour out your heart to him and rest in his embrace, because he is a refuge for even the most questioning soul. What deep questions are you looking for answers about? Oh, that's a deep question. And I'm gonna leave. I usually answer those questions, but today, since we started off with a question, how am I doing this? I wanted to leave you guys today with the question, um, what deep questions are you looking for answers about? And as I reflect on finding life, as I devote myself to Getting rid of— dismissing distractions and rising above circumstances, and then taking the approach to realize the strategy of a questioning soul. Like, what deep questions that I need to ask God? And so today, you guys, go out, be fruitful. Remember He is in you as you find him. You will find him in you. So we thank God right now for his Son Jesus, for giving us that to be able to find and be and have a Savior Jesus and his you know the Holy Spirit as our comfort. And it is so comforting to have the Holy Spirit. So we thank you, we glorify you, we, we, we say thank you, Lord. Thank you. So go out, be fruitful. Thank you guys for joining. Have a blessed day.