“Israel is an empty vine,
he brings forth fruit unto himself”
Numbers 13:30
An empty life is simply a life lived unto itself. Those filled with their own agendas are incapable of genuine relationships, for all others are viewed from the standpoint of personal advantage and gain. Everything becomes subservient to the betterment of self.
Life is no longer lived from the outflow of God’s heart, interests, and selflessness. It is a subtle death, a slow decay, as priorities shift from God to self. His giftings become “ours.” His ministrations of life become “our” ministry. Many seek to build and foster “their” church or fellowship in the spirit of competition. Our interactions with others are jaded by the need to satisfy and promote ourselves.
The emptiness of such a life is a desolation beyond comprehension. There is a blindness evidenced by a heart that is no longer touched by the needs of others. The warmth and wonder of fellowship dissipate into a hollow existence. Life becomes an unending succession of days with little or no participation with our brothers and sisters. The self-life is the path to spiritual death and decay. Its end is precipitated by the same spirit that befell Satan.
“For thou hast said in thine heart,
I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation,
in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the most High.”
ISAIAH 14:13 – 14
Self-seeking and self-serving are the very gateways to hell and death. The Life and Spirit of Christ is God’s provision for our salvation.
“But made Himself of no reputation,
and took upon Him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man,
He humbled himself,
and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him,
and given Him a name which is above every name.”
PHILIPPIANS 2:7–9
In being free from the tyranny of self, we find life. In “choosing” to pick up our cross and follow the ONE who is the Giver of all good things, we live in the joy of serving Him.
“Herein is my Father glorified,
that ye bear much fruit.”
JOHN 15:8
Faithfulness to Him will unerringly bring us into HIS Joy!
“His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
Matthew 25:21, 23
Related Posts:
“The Christian that is bound by his own horizon, the church that lives simply for itself, is bound to die a spiritual death and sink into stagnancy and corruption.”
– A.B. Simpson
“You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for one’s leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting… It takes all one’s strength, and all one’s heart, and all one’s mind, and all one’s soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint.”
– A.J. Gossip
Brian Troxel
Such a clear word and warning!
“But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath.” (Romans 2: 8)
Thank you Brian, for being faithful to give words that do not tickle the ears.
❤️✝️
Darling of Jesus, I so appreciate ABOUT MICHELE SPERBER, but in particular your opening paragraph which splendidly reads:
When I thought about what God would have me to write on this blog, I heard the Lord say: “Come forward! Step over the line!” His words caused me to realize more than ever that each of us is a unique expression of God and that we must not,… we dare not allow anything but the real us manifest… Indeed, we must step forward!
Heaven’s Sister Michele, thank you kindly and burning blessings of Jesus’ beauty in your being and intimate blessings of loving affection from His holy heart as Lord of history and King of heaven.
I always feel such great love in your comments. Thank you for encouraging me and for being a Shulamite woman.
❤️Michele
I am very appreciative of your comments. Its true and I have to preach these things to myself. Fewer visitors but the comments from those who know is most encouraging.
Blessings to you and your loved ones.
BT
I sent my reply to your comment to Shulamitefire by mistake, and I just realized it now. My grandmother always said: “The eggs are good after Easter,” so hopefully, my scrambled-up message is too!
Blessings and love,
❤️Michele
All good… grateful to see the interaction.
BT
A life habitually distracted from or delinquent of beholding steadfastly the transcendent, transforming, worshipfully awe-inspiring, ravishing beauty of the One Beautiful God, both consciously and subliminally, is wretchedly wasting, vaingloriously void of meaning everlasting, centering holy purpose, and direction heavenward.
The one thing needed, which Jesus commended Mary for choosing, the purity and simplicity of devotion to Himself, the Christ no less, is that better part, yea, the best part, from which prosperously overflows every other Kingdom imperative and provision, energized and elucidated by example to the praise and thanksgiving of the mercy, magnificence and matchless might of the Father, Son, and Spirit.
Psalm 27:4 AMP
One thing I have asked of the Lord, and that I will seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life,
To gaze upon the beauty [the delightful loveliness and majestic grandeur] of the Lord
And to meditate in His temple.
2 Corinthians 3:12-18 AMP
12 Since we have such a [glorious] hope and confident expectation, we speak with great courage, 13 and we are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the Israelites would not gaze at the end of the glory which was fading away. 14 But [in fact] their minds were hardened [for they had lost the ability to understand]; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed [only] in Christ. 15 But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil [of blindness] lies over their heart; 16 but whenever a person turns [in repentance and faith] to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [emancipation from bondage, true freedom]. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.
Beauty is God’s handwriting-a wayside sacrament.
John Milton
So appreciated the comment.
BT
The empty life is a life empty of honest humility. Our beloved brother Paul Balius writes of this with the following excerpt from a very excellent post today to his blog:
Don’t you know that God can do more through you the moment you let Him? Pride strives and demands it is all up to us. Humility rests in the truth from heaven, which is that God supplies and all we need to do is receive. Let God make you into that soul that only He can accomplish.
Often, our desire for holiness is born out of pride in how we want to appear before others. Jesus taught, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:12 NASB).
We all think ourselves humbler than we really are. We think our desire for spiritual power is purely to serve God when, in fact, there is a part of us that wants to be seen higher before men. Until you are humble, you are not. Pride before the fall and humility before the power.
The test of your humility is when people hurt your pride. “A man’s pride and sense of self-importance will bring him down, but he who has a humble spirit will obtain honor” (Proverbs 29:23 AMP).
https://hehasyou.org/2024/12/15/power-and-humility/
Burning blessings of Jesus’ beauty in your being and intimate blessings of loving affection from His holy heart as Lord of history and King of heaven.
Appreciate his writings… have tried often to connect.
A good share.
BT
Amen
Thank you Curleen!
BT
Beloved brother Brian, you write, “There is a blindness evidenced by a heart that is no longer touched by the needs of others.”
Yes, we are told at Acts 20:35 to remember the words of the Lord Jesus that it is more blessed [brings greater joy] to give than receive. Greater joy is brought both to the giver, including to God the Giver of every good, and the receiver, when we give not to get, but to help and to honor and to heal.
The following which Erik Fromm (German Philosopher and Social Psychologist 1900-1980) wrote on the subject I think is both significant and substantial, even if it is or is not unwittingly, ‘Christian Hedonism’, to use the term coined by John Piper, which term properly used and understood actually has magnificent merit:
Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.
Gladly to the above quote, I gratefully add that in the actual act of giving I experience Himself, our loving Father of mercies, the great and grand God of all grace and comfort, the sole Source of the sufficient supply of all that for which Erik Fromm cogently albeit incompletely claims.
Let everything that has breath and every breath of our lives be the Christ- capacity of supernatural, supernal increase in us and through us happifying Himself and handily helping others on our Way to heaven.
Burning blessings of Jesus’ beauty in your being, my friend, and intimate blessings of loving affection from His holy heart as Lord of history and King of heaven.
You preach and live the cross, dear brother…. Far too many would rather hear something else, yet the cross is the way to life.
Thank you for embracing it and giving us living words because you do.
Blessings and much love to you and your family, as well.
❤️Michele
The thread of selfishness is found in our hearts from the day we are born. It changes and grows as we grow, and even into our maturity – it is a thread of fleshly or carnal thinking.
We get the opportunity in Christ throught the Holy Spirit for a change of character beginning with the fruit of the Spirit. If we allow him to work in us we can become the blessing that he intends for us to become.
Blessings, Brian
Our Reasonable Act of Worship
I posted the following dream below in September of 2103.
I had a dream the morning of 09/26/2013 . In the dream I was inside a church although not a part of the church, I was just inside observing. I saw 2 sets of pews that were full of people on both sides with an aisle separating the pews. Then I saw, towards the front of the church, a large cross and it was laying with the top corner of the cross and foot of the cross positioned in such a way as for someone to stoop down and get underneath the cross and carry it. The cross was positioned with the foot of the cross towards the pulpit and the top was facing the doors of the church. It was as if it were placed there for anyone willing to stoop down and pick it up. What I found significant is the fact that in every church I have ever been in, the cross was always standing, usually on the platform where the preacher preaches his sermon but here it was not, instead, it was among the people The people in either side of the pews paid no attention to it as they were engaged in worship getting their Holy Spirit buzz. Then I saw a young man get out of the pew, walk towards the cross,stoop down, pick it up, and then proceed to walk out of the church. I remember people laughing at him as he did this. Sound familiar? The young man was undeterred and carried the cross, now his cross out of the church.
Today, 11/22/2013, the Lord gave me further revelation on the dream which I am posting. If you look at my description of the people in the church you see that on both sides of the aisle the pews are packed with people worshiping. In the aisle I describe the cross laying on its side with the top part facing the doors of the church. Additionally, I describe a young man towards the middle of the church of the right side make his way to the aisle, stoop down, pick up the cross and head out the door while people on both sides of the aisle laughed at him.
What the Lord showed me is that this young man who was being mocked was the only one whose worship was acceptable to the Lord because true worship involves sacrifice and not just singing songs. Romans 12 bears this out.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.
(Rom 12:1-2)
When Abraham went to sacrifice Issac at the Lord’s command he said that he and the boy were going to worship.
He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
(Gen 22:5)
What we would call sacrifice the Lord calls worship
A clear and precise word which few will accept. His Way is contrary to man’s man. The self-life can never bring joy to Him. HE who is to be our way if followed will eventually become our Life.
Blessings with appreciation of the share!
BT