Jesus wants us to experience joy

Today Annette concludes her devotions looking at the theme of nourishment, which have been a key part of Officer’s Fellowship for the Central Division.

In past few years I have recognised the need for me to spend time in retreat from the everyday things so that I can nourish my soul and find the refreshment that I need to keep up with the demands of ministry.

While I recognise the need for times of retreat, the reality is that I am not very good at making this a priority, often putting it off for another time, that more often than not, it does not eventuate. Often leaving the time of retreat until my heart and soul is parched, and the need for nourishment is urgent.

I am pretty sure that all of us realise the importance – in theory – of making sure we participate in the things that nourish our lives and souls.

Yesterday we discovered from the scripture for fellowship that the Father’s love is what we need to nourish the fullness of our body, soul and spirit.

To fully rediscover this nourishing love there are moments when we need to take time to retreat from the everyday – as you have hopefully been able to in the past few days.

In these moments I pray that you have been reminded of the love that never lets us go and to refresh our relationship with Jesus. To be refreshed in the love that nourishes us deep down in our hearts.

When our hearts have been nourished the result – we are reminded in scripture – is that we are empowered by God.

Even more than that, Jesus tells us that he wants us to know about this love for us because He wants us to experience a joy that will fill our hearts to overflowing.

You see, Jesus wants us to experience a joy that is beyond our current reality because we carry the love of God wherever we go.

We can only experience that joy through letting Jesus’ love, nourish and restore our hearts, letting that love nourish and restore our very lives.

So, let the scripture from John 15:1-17 remind you in the coming days, weeks and months ahead to spend time regularly in retreat from the everyday so that you can nourish and care for yourself, your relationships, your heart, your soul and your spirit. Spend time restoring the nourishment that the world takes from you before you become parched and dry.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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The Love That Nourishes Jesus

Today Annette continues the third instalment of her devotions looking at the theme of nourishment.

Can I encourage you to meditate on the fact that the love that nourishes Jesus is available to each and every one of us.

Imagine for a moment the love that a parent can have for a child.

The kind of love that would see the parent do anything they could to see their child happy, healthy and fulfilled. Sometimes these things will look like – doing the things that help them learn, it is the discipline that corrects a bad attitude or behaviour, it is doing those things that bring joy to them and above all it is loving them no matter what and without limit. Earthly parents are not perfect but even in our imperfections the one thing that costs us nothing is to love our children.

Take that same love and imagine this love coming from our infinitely perfect Father – our heavenly Father.

A love that outshines the brightest star and that is the kind of love that God has and expresses for Jesus throughout the Bible.

It is the kind of love that nourishes Jesus at every point of His life.

When he is celebrating his baptism, when He is turning water into wine, when he is healing the multitudes, when He is weary, when He is sweating droplets of blood in the garden of Gethsemane, and when He is calling out “My God, My God why have you abandoned me”.

In all of these instances it is the love of the Father for the Son that nourishes Jesus in order for Him to be obedient to the Father.

As we explore this concept of nourish it is our body, mind and spirit that need to be nourished and there is not a one size fits all way, in our earthly lives, that we can employ to nourish every part of our being.

But in our scripture for this week there is one thing that comes from Jesus to us that can and will nourish our hearts and that is the love of the Father for Jesus.

Jesus tells His disciples in our scripture that it is the same love from the Father that He in turn loves us with. That same love that nourishes Jesus “for I continually live nourished and empowered by his love” John 15:10b (The Passion Translation) is also intended to nourish and then empower us in all we do when we keep His commands. 

Spend time today being reminded once more that Jesus loves you. Be reminded that this love is for each of us, it never dims, it never waivers, it is never based on what you do or do not do.

It is not like the flawed love of earth, it is sure, steadfast, abundant and lavished upon us (refer to 1 John 3:1).

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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Our Hearts Need To Be Nourished

Yesterday Annette shared the first in a series of four devotions looking at the Father’s love, encouraging us to consider John 15:9 from The Passion Translation and start looking for those dry and parched places in your life that need to be ‘Nourished’.

You see, our hearts need to be nourished, we need to spend dedicated and focussed time nourishing our souls, our relationship with God and our friendships with others.

She writes;

If I was to ask the question “What Nourishes you” to a group of people, I would probably get as many different answers as there are people in the room.

The answers would also swing wildly from one end of the spectrum to the other. Some might say that getting together with a group of friends is what nourishes them, and another might say being by themselves is much more nourishing. One might say going for a long hike in nature and another would say blobbing in front of TV. For each of us this concept of being nourished is different and even could change depending on the stage of life.

The type of nourishing that we need will also depend on what it is that we have been doing to make us feel in need of nourishing. It might be that we have spent ages outside in the sun, or we might have spent days on end with people, or days stuck at home unwell.

In each case there will be a different thing that will nourish us. 

When it comes to the theme nourish there will be times in our lives when we sit in a place of feeling like we are depleted to the point of withering away and becoming less than we should be. This is the time when we need to know the kinds of things that will fill us and help us to feel more like ourselves.

I know that for me there are times when I keep going and going like an energiser battery and I have to be reminded that the pace I have set cannot be maintained long term and I have to stop and renew my energy. 

Our scripture for this week kind of gives us the permission we might need and perhaps we could see it as a divine reminder that our hearts need to be nourished.

Jesus is talking to the disciples and is teaching them about how they can bear good fruit for the Kingdom, how they can been seen as mature disciples and right in the middle of that teaching he tells them that their hearts need to be nourished. Even Jesus recognised the need for His people to be uplifted, cared for and nourished. 

So, in these few days how are you going to nourish yourself? What things are you going to do or not do in an effort to take the necessary time you need to nourish your heart and soul?

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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Let the Father’s Love Nourish our Hearts

Today is the commencement of a four part devotional series, which coincides with the Central Division’s Officer’s Fellowship. Annette has written some devotions around the theme of nourishment, which are based on John 15:1-17 from The Passion Translation, specifically verse 9 where it speaks of us needing to let the Father’s love nourish our hearts.

Over this past weekend Perry and I spent a couple of hours puddling around in our small garden. We planted some vegetables, mowed the small amount of lawn, and cut back a few things. As we finished up and went inside to recover, I noticed a couple of things.

First, I was really thirsty because, yes, we had spent this time outside in the relative warm of early spring without water bottles and I was parched.

Second, that my hands – once cleaned up – were quite dry and crusty from the work that I had done, and I needed some hand cream to nourish the skin.

It can be the same for each of us.

We are out there in the world getting on with what needs to be done, doing the hard work of planting seeds of faith into people, stepping into lives to assist and all things that come with our being ministers of the gospel.

Sometimes it is not until we stop and go “inside” that we realise the impact that the work has had on us and in particular on our souls. We can discover that we are thirsty for an infilling of what we have given out and we can feel parched and dry on the inside.

There are so many demands on each of us that at the end of any given day, week, month we can be left feeling like we have been completely drained of the good, nourishing stuff that should fill us. So, we start looking for some form of nourishment to replenish what the world has taken from us.

Our theme this fellowship comes from the Scripture John 15:1-17 and specifically verse 9 in The Passion Translation where it speaks of us needing to let the Father’s love nourish our hearts.

“I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me.
You must continually let my love nourish your hearts.“

In preparation for this week’s fellowship the team at Divisional Headquarters have strongly felt the need to nourish ourselves in some way, even more so over the past few weeks, and we are believing that this is a need for other officers in the Division at this time.

So, this week as we step “inside” I encourage you to consider the scripture in verse 9 and start looking for those dry and parched places in your life that need to be ‘Nourished’. Use these few days to Nourish your soul, to Nourish your relationship with God and Nourish your friendships with others.

For those that are not at fellowship I hope and pray that you too will find the opportunity to nourish yourself and soak in the Father’s love for you.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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