Today’s Reading:
John 15
Isaiah 45
I am the sprouting vine and you’re my branches. As you live in union with me as your source, fruitfulness will stream from within you—but when you live separated from me you are powerless.
John 15:5 TPT
I perceived the Spirit of the Living God say,
Trust and obey. Incline your heart to obedience to Me. This is love. This is love in action. It’s love demonstrated. It requires trust — trusting that I Am not leading you down a false path, but I Am instead guiding you along the way that is for your good and benefit. You can’t see the path ahead. It requires trust. Allow adventure to take up all of the room inside of you that has been giving space to fear. Push out fear, and embrace the promise of adventure — because you trust Me.
If you keep my commands, you will live in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands, for I continually live nourished and empowered by his love. My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy that I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness!
John 15:10-11 TPT
Happiness is in Me. The old song is right, the only way to be happy in Jesus is to trust and obey. The old you is dead. The new you has risen in Christ. You can never be happy in your old ways again. You can’t ever be satisfied in your own strength again. This is the life of covenant now. This is the life of being yoked together with your King. Going your own way has no place. Shouldering the full burden makes no sense. Great grace is here for you to shift into covenantal thinking and covenantal moving and operating. Your whole life now is a partnership. You are not only not on your own, you are bound forever to Me.
I am Yahweh, the only God there is, and you’ll never find another. I will strengthen you for victory, even though you do not intimately know who I am. Yet through you everyone will know who I really am. Those from the rising sun in the east to the west, everyone everywhere will know that I am Yahweh, the one and only God, and there is no other. I create light, and I make it dark. I make bliss, and I create adversity. I am Yahweh who does all these things.’ “Shower down righteousness, O heavens above. Let the clouds drip with deliverance! Let earth’s womb open and bear salvation’s fruit, with righteousness rising up beside it! I, Yahweh, have created all of them!
Isaiah 45:5-9 TPT
Take great joy. I see the full road ahead. I know the whole plan and have accounted for every seeming detour. Whom or what should you fear? You are walking side-by-side, hand-in-hand bound together forever with your King. The pressure is off. The weight of full responsibility is off. You have a partner and an eternal friend. Walk with Me. Learn from Me. Hear My voice, and move in tandem with Me. I will never lead you astray. I will never walk you into places for which there is no light. Wherever you go, you are the light, and I Am with you. Don’t fear the darkness. I Am its author. You can walk boldly into it, because in Me you are the light that dispels darkness.
Shame on the one who argues with his Creator, like one clay pot among other pots arguing with the potter. Should the clay say to the potter, ‘What in the world are you doing with me? Your hands are clumsy’? Shame on the one who complains to a father, ‘Why in the world did you conceive me?’ Or to a mother, ‘Why in the world did you bring me to birth?’ ” Listen to what Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, the One who shaped him, has to say: “Why do you question me about the destiny of my children or tell me what to do with my children and what I have made? I created the earth and populated it with people. With my own hands, I spread out the cosmos and then commanded the starry host to shine! I am the one who raised him up in righteousness! I will make all his paths straight and level. He will build my city and release my exiled people, not because he was bribed or hired to do it, declares the Almighty Yahweh!”
Isaiah 45:10-13 TPT
These are days that require a new way of thinking and operating. Half-hearted partnership will not do. Managing what you can in your own strength and coming to me for the rest will not do. This is every step, every decision, every burden, every moment. This is a time of being trained in understanding covenant, of being properly yoked to Me in covenant. And this is a time of walking forward into the unknown with a heart inflated with the excitement of adventure — not fear — because you trust Me. These are days that are marked by covenant. No other way will do.
How to Respond
- Re-commit to trust and obey the Lord. Ask Him to quicken your spirit any time you move to do something in your own strength or understanding.
- Pray, Holy Spirit thank You that You are the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Thank You that You lead me into all truth, that You know the path ahead, and before I was born, You knew all the days written for me in Your books. Help me to leave behind my old ways of operating and fully embrace covenantal life with You.
- Declare, here’s what I’ve learned through it all: don’t give up; don’t be impatient; be entwined as one with the Lord. Be brave and courageous, and never lose hope. Yes, keep on waiting — for he will never disappoint you! Psalm 27:14
- Decree, I will walk bound to the Lord. I will not move to the right or the left without Him. I will no longer make decisions out of my own understanding. Instead, I will consult Him on all matters, big and small. The Lord is training me in covenantal walking, thinking and operating. The old me is dead and the new me is risen in Christ, one with Him. Apart from Him I can do nothing.
For more encouragement from The Glory & the New Wine, check out the post from this day in years past:
2023: Watch for the Sudden Rainstorms of The Lord’s Glory
2022: Step Out Into the Unknown and Dance with the Lord
2021: Look for the Gold Lining & Expectantly Watch for the Goodness of the Lord
