Lean on a Broken Reed and Pierce Your Hand

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire!  (Luke 24:32)

It’s one of the most powerful illustrations in the Bible, if you just think about it.

If you lean on a broken reed, it will pierce your hand.

Ow!  I don’t even like stubbing my toe or stepping on a Lego.  I can’t imagine using a reed like a cane or a walking stick, leaning on it, and having it give way and pierce right through my hand.

But that’s what happens when we trust in things that aren’t of God.

You’ll find the illustration in 2 Kings and Isaiah and Ezekiel.  It’s when the Israelites want to trust the Egyptians instead of trusting the Lord their God.

Just imagine leaning on a reed, and it breaks, and it pierces right through your hand.

That is when you put your trust in something other than God and His principles.

When you lean on lying, but God says be truthful.

When you lean on anger, but God says His joy is your strength.

When you lean on revenge, but God’s way is forgiveness.

When you lean on alcohol to help you make it through the day.

When you lean on a little pot to ease your mind.

When you lean on mother’s little helper, you’re leaning on a broken reed, and it will pierce your hand.

Karen Wheaton’s daughter has written a book called The Way Home, by Lindsey Wheaton Doss.  For reasons described in the book, Lindsey began to lean on broken reeds.  She leaned on the broken reed of the attentions of another man, not her husband.  She ended up leaning on alcohol and parties and other men, and that reed broke and splintered into her hand and her mind and her soul and nearly destroyed her.

When we lean on anything but God and His ways, we are leaning on a broken reed, and it will pierce our hand.

So what are you leaning on today?  What are you putting your trust in, for your hope, for your pleasure, for your satisfaction?  For your provision?  For your mental needs and spiritual needs?  For the sanity of your soul?

Lean on Jesus!  Lean on the Lord and His Word!  Put your trust fully in Him!  He is the rock we can trust in and lean on and build our lives on.  It’s Him and only Him and all Him all the time.

But if we lean on the world’s very poor substitutes, they will all turn out to be a broken reed and pierce our hand.

May God bless you, today.

I’m Doug Apple.

Three Ways That Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire!  (Luke 24:32)

First John 4:18 says that “perfect love casts out fear.”

Here are three ways that happens.

One is, when you really love someone, then it drives out your fear of them.

Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”  The problem with enemies is that they stir up so much emotion, you can’t even think straight.  And one thing they make you feel is fear.  They are out to get you.  That is a fearful thing. 

But when we obey Jesus and love our enemies, which we can only do in the power of God’s Spirit inside of us, then that love drives out our fear of them. 

It’s the same for people who give you anxiety or make you nervous.  When you love them with God’s love inside of you, then all fear is driven out.  You are free to truly love them as God wants you to!

Another way perfect love casts out fear is when other people fear you.  Who knows why they fear you.  Maybe you have power over them, or hold an important part of their life in your hands; but when they know that you love them with the love of God inside of you, then their fear of you is cast out!

“But maybe I want them to fear me,” you say.  “I need to keep them in their place.”

Well that’s not God’s way.  God’s way is that you amp yourself up full of His Holy Spirit, and then you love and you love and you love.  That’s God’s way.  Read all about it in First John chapter 4.  That chapter is brimming with God’s love for us, and the love we are to have for one another.  Check it out.

And another way perfect love casts out fear is when other people want you to fear them – like the old bumper sticker, “Fear this.”  They want to hold power over you through fear, but if you love them with the love of God inside of you, then once again, perfect love casts out fear.  It casts out fear in all equations!

It’s like a multiplication problem where perfect love is the number zero.  You know, it doesn’t matter what numbers you are multiplying.  Make it 10 times 10.  Make it 10 times 100.  Make it a thousand times a thousand!  Those are all the fears, thousands of fears. 

Then bring in the number zero.  Make it a thousand times a thousand, times a thousand…..times zero.  What’s the answer?  How much of the fear is left?  Zero.

Because perfect love casts out fear.

May God bless you, today.

I’m Doug Apple.

The Trees of the Lord Are Full of Sap

(Click to listen)

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire!  (Luke 24:32)

The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
And I am one.

I want to be that mighty tree in Psalm 1, planted by the water, delighting in the Word of God, full of the water of the Word, dense with it, heavy with it.  Strong with it.

The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
And I am one.

I want to be dense with the Spirit of God, full of the Living Water of John 7, filling me, like a mighty tree, dense and mighty and alive...to every branch and leaf and twig and sprout...full, and growing, in the Spirit of the living God.

The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
And I am one.

Mighty in Christ Jesus.  He is the Vine.  He gives the life.  He gives the strength.  He gives the power.  He gives the wisdom and the knowledge from His limitless treasures, abounding and abounding and abounding with life, the ever expanding, growing, filling, abundant life in Christ. 

I hunger for it.  I thirst for it.  I long for it.  I desire it.  I need it.  Nothing else matters if I am not that tree, planted by the water, soaking up the Word in rivers, and letting it flow in me, from the roots to the tips.  No bad spots, no blemishes, no part unreached by the sap of God as His Spirit flows up and up and up, filling me and stretching me and growing me as the Kingdom of Heaven becomes in me that mighty, life giving, life nurturing, life sustaining tree, filled to the absolute most dense fullness that is possible.

The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
The trees of the Lord are full of sap.
And I am one.

May God bless you, today.

I’m Doug Apple.

(Psalm 104:16)