Borrowing Stuff From God

John 14:12-17
12 "The truth is, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.
13 You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, because the work of the Son brings glory to the Father.
14 Yes, ask anything in my name, and I will do it!
15 {Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit--} "If you love me, obey my commandments.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you.
17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.(NLT)

Sorry to make the word of God so small.( I feel a bit funny when God's Word is little and what I'm writing is in bigger print!) There are three things in the above verses that I want to blog about, but since the scripture is considerable for a blog, I had to use a smaller font.
I titled this 'Borrowing Stuff From God'  and I mean it. Really!

In this wonderful chapter in the book of John, our apostle explains that we borrow from God Himself three very powerful things.  You might want to look at it another way and say, God lends us stuff to empower our faith levels. Whatever way you think of it, there are three wonderful things.

The First is v.12, we borrow God's Divine providence so that he can work through us...I call it borrowed activity. God himself will work through us to do his will here on earth and more specifically his work in our familiar circle of life.

The Second, thing that we borrow, or God lends us, is "Borrowed Authority" v.13-14. A Christian's true efforts and work is never his own, it is God working in and through him/her.  When we begin to think it's our own, we basically defeat every opportunity of success and sabotage the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Third thing we borrow from the Lord us is a 'Borrowed Presence'.  The Lord lives in us. The apostle Paul said 'filled unto the goodness of God,' in Eph 3:19.  The one who does this is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The Bible tells us that He will be "another Counselor."  I like the old translation better, the word is 'Comforter', but we should understand it in its original meaning. It comes from the word fortis, that is, "to make strong,' and com means 'with.' someone who stands with you and makes you strong.
So there, you can read the verses on your own, think on these three points and be blessed by God's Word.
As a Christian, the things we borrow from the LORD bring Him glory and fulfil our heart's desire to be used by Him. Awesome, huh?

Vaccum Cleaner

I got home from doing some chores and Karen said the vaccum cleaner was not working. Now if you know Karen she isn't crippled or mostly feeling uninclined when it come to fixin things.  she will give it the once over then the, going over then the parts catalog, say a prayer, then a more meaningful prayer, then she will say a desperate prayer then start rebuking the devil for trying to steal our money by breaking our stuff, then when she has gone through all the binding and loosing she will just plain get on the Lords back and tell him to get it working.  But today the prayer loosed not mechanical motion, the Lord wasn't in it and the vac lay still on the floor motionless.  Karen said there is something wrong with the cleaner.  I don't know what it is it was fine the other day.  So I pugged the lifeless dirt sucker in.  I hit the button and it went on then off.  I checked the plug and hit the button and it went on and off again. I hit the button and took some of its parts apart and then hit the button but there was no life in our vac.  We tallked about how many years we had the cleaner and what a job it had done for us.  I hit the button thinking the compliment would surely draw a performing response...nothing!  We sat there for a minute and I took the bag out.... again, I took the filter off....again, then I turned it upside down and spun the thing that goes around under there and it was free as the wind...the wire was not loose and the plug was still in and there lay are lifeless hoover.....Tornadoless and ruined.  Karen said I shook it and I got it to work, so I gave it a little shake nothing. Livi didn't think I did it right so she came over and showed me how she did it and we gave it a real hard shake...and on came the Hoover like it was Jesus coming out of the Tomb... I turned it off and then I came back and turned it on and it fired right up.  Karen turned it on and on it went sucking dirt and crumbs from off the floor.  We turned it off and came up stairs and then we snuck down stairs and snuck up on the cleaner and I hit the on button and....Wa la.... it came back on again and it is still working since we gave it that great big shake.
Sometimes life and church is like that...We work better after we have been given a good shaken.
The Vac was dead.  We were ready to send it to the big junk yard in the sky.
Sometimes things just need a good shaking!

Rest

Rest and relaxation are so important that God put them in the Ten Commandments. God tells us to rest every seventh day. If you’re not taking a day off every week, you’re breaking one of the Ten Commandments – and you won’t be as effective as you could be in ministry (or anything else you do).

Jesus reminds us in Mark 2:27 that the command to take a Sabbath is for our own benefit: “Man was not given for the Sabbath but the Sabbath was given for man.” God gave us the Sabbath to help us to rest and restore. Our bodies need it.

Jesus modeled this in His own ministry, and we need to model it in our ministries.

*Relaxation: We need to take time to enjoy life.

Mark 6:31-32 says, “Because so many people were coming and going that they didn’t even have a chance to eat, [Jesus] said to them, `Come with Me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’” (NIV). In other words, Jesus said, “Fellows, you deserve a break today. Come to the desert and we’re going to rest.”

Jesus modeled this God-created need to rest and relax. I’m more and more convinced of the importance of balance in ministry. All areas of our lives need to be balanced. There is an ebb and flow in ministry, a time when you give out and a time when you receive, a time when you work and a time when you rest. Ecclesiastes says, “There’s a time for everything in life” – to laugh, to cry, to build up, and to tear down.

The Bible says in Matthew 11:19 that Jesus came enjoying life (Phillips). You don’t hear many theologians talking about that verse. They talk about Jesus the old sourpuss. Have you noticed on TV that the media always shows Jesus with a sour, dour, very serious face? But the Bible says, Jesus came enjoying life. He survived stress by enjoying life.

God wants you to do that. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 6:17, “God richly gives us everything to enjoy” (NCV). As we use it for His glory, we also get to enjoy it at the same time.

Balance is a key to stress management. I constantly remind myself to --

* Divert daily – Take a mini-vacation every day to recharge. Catch ur breath

* Withdraw weekly – Take a day off every week. you gotta chill.
* Abandon annually – Take an extended period of time off every year. Campfire here I come.

Jesus rested regularly because he knew God designed us to need rest, but also because he was being obedient to the commands of God.
*passing along a note from Rick Warren to the pastors, maybe it will help you.