Tooty-Fruity

Mark 4
Let us pass over unto the other side.
                                               Mark 4:35b

LET IT GLOW

Jesus had a purpose for going to the other side of the sea-so the
disciples would experience His peace and power, and so a man
would be delivered from unclean spirits.

Does Jesus want me to pass over to the other side? Are there
attitudes and things that I need to leave behind and go? Do I need
to stop living by sight and pass over to living by faith?

Israel crossed over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. They
left an old way of life, one spent wandering in the desert, and entered
into a new way of life, trusting God to defeat their enemies and
lived in very fruitful land..

I don't want to miss out on my "Promised Land" because of lacking
faith to pass over to the other side.

LET IT GROW

One of my favorite desserts is ice cream. A fond childhood memory of
mine is my sitting on top of the old, blue, handcranked  ice cream
freezer as my dad turned the crank while sitting on the back step.
(The weight pushed down the ice and salt rock around the container of
liquid, supposedly.) It was worth every minute of having a cold bottom
and listening to his complaints of sore arms.  Oooh, that lucious first
summer's bowl of banana or strawberry homemade ice cream that Mom
mixed up. It was out of this world! What I wouldn't give to have one
now.

When I read the scriptures about the sower, the seed, and the ground,
it reminded me of ice cream. Yes, ice cream. You see, my heart is like
the ground where the seed is sown. The seed is God's Word.

My heart can be like "Rocky Road" ice cream-rough with chucks of
sin, where Satan snatches God's Word away.

My heart can be like "Blackberry" ice cream-dark spots where the
materialism, world, and riches choke out the Word of God.

My heart can be like "Tooty-Fruity" ice cream-sweet, lucious. The fruit
of the Spirit is evident and spread around to others. It brings forth fruit
that is thirtyfold, sixty, and one humdred fold as much as God's Word
grows in my heart.

I definitely want my heart to be like Tooty-Fruity ice cream. (I hope
there is such a flavor. If not, then I invented a new kind.)

LET IT GO

Have faith to follow Jesus when He leads me to cross over to the other
side.
Allow God's Word to grow in me so I can be sweet as Tooty-Fruity.