5.11.10_Letting go...

Praise the LORD!!!

   With today being the day after my birthday, I've a lot on my heart. Not those things most people would have on their minds. You may know those things. Like, "what is my life about," or "am I going to ever accomplish all those things I've wanted for so long." Then again, maybe these are the things upon my heart, but I'm not worried about whether or not these things are going to effect my life personally, but the lives of a lot of other people.

   Since the LORD got my wholehearted, undivided attention on my "re birth day", Jan. 7, 95, my life's goals have been more towards effecting other peoples lives for the better, not about the betterment of my own life. CHRIST truly changed my life that day. HE made me into a person that constantly has had the needs of others on his mind, whereas before I was greatly self centered and only worried about self!!! This is where the inspiration for Vine of CHRIST Ministries came from. First and foremost the LORD gave me the vision for the ministry and HE gave me the desire to make amends for a life that had  totally revolved around self. There are so many details to this ministry that it's next to impossible to cover them all at one setting and this truly isn't the place for it either.

   With all these thoughts running rampant in my mind today, I decided to type in "much upon my heart" in the search box of my Logos online Bible program (I can't use the one on the computer and be online at the same time:( ). The first two verses that came up were, Eccles.1:12-18 and Phil. 1:3-11 and they're the basis for this devotional today. I'll not enter them here, but you can read them by just running you cursor over them here. Thanks to Logos you'll be able to read them in whatever version of the Bible you'd like and in many different ways. Anyway, with my reading Eccles. I saw that much of what we want in life is but a waste of our time. A chasing after the wind, something impossible to catch and hold onto. The LORD impressed it upon my heart that in my trying to bring about all these services that the ministry will someday be involved in providing for people, that it is futile on my own. I could kill myself just trying to bring half of them into existence, let alone make them effectively provide the massive needs that they'll be taking care of.

   Then HE led me to read the other verses, but not in totality, only up to verse six, which reads "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." This brought the whole endeavor together. HE was letting me know that all these things that HE's shown me from the beginning, will happen! But that they'll not be done by my hands or the fact that I concentrate all my efforts on them. They'll happen by HIS power and provisions alone and I've not to overly concern myself with them. What I need to do is take each day as it comes to me. Each day as it is, a blessing in itself and do that which I've been lead to do in it. HE'll provide the people, the money, locations, equipment, vehicles, you name it. GOD started this thing through me and HE's the ONE that is going to finish it. I could spin my wheels trying to race around here pulling all the details together the best I can, but it would accomplish very little at all. These works were set into motion by HIM and they shall come to fruition only by HIS direct intervention in all that pertains to them.

   So it is time, once again, for me to step back and relax, and let GOD take full control over all that this, HIS ministry will be. It is very hard for a person that has always had their hands involved in providing for and maintaining his life and the lives of those around him to just step back and let someone else take over. But I'm just going to have to do it, if this thing is truly going to come into being. If I'd of done this years ago, who knows maybe it would already be functioning. Not! Because if the LORD had wanted it to of happened then, it would of. This is the time, this is the place, and it is going to be JESUS that will bring this thing all together as HE's shown me, not myself. It's time for me to simply, "let go and let GOD."


 Other verses you may like to read: 1 Chron. 22:1-19; Ps. 119:105-112; Job 31:1-40; 2 Cor. 2:3-11

Use these verses, but don't stop with them, cross reference and seek out GOD from within HIS WORD!!!

Prayer request can be sent to: prayers@vineofchrist.org 

GOD bless and good day,

Rev. Marshall Barth

Vine of CHRIST Ministries


Vine Ministerial Network International