The Vine News

Jesus takes no prisoners.
It is a great paradox that in God’s kingdom – one that is abundant and overflowing – there is no waste. The Master uses everything, and He wants us to follow Him in that: No Holding On.
The children of Israel got only daily manna in the wilderness. Anything saved would spoil terribly. And the Bible records that each day we are blessed with new mercies.

"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." -- Matthew 10: 39

There’s no sunshine remaining from the day, and no darkness left over from the night. Everything that has been apportioned, is everything we have to use, and there’s nothing left behind.
If we are blessed and yet hold on with stinginess and do not bless others, we have stopped the works of God and clogged the pipes to our own next day’s blessings.
But not only does it clog up our systems, it also stops our heart – sometimes literally!
We cannot hold on to that which does not belong to us or does not belong to this place and time.  It stops our heart from experiencing God,

and from receiving what is next, what is better, and what is needed.
We can’t hear from God with a stopped up heart. The flow of information and sometimes even the pleading for our needs is lost in those clogged pipes through which little of nothing can get through.
I’ve often been amazed at how often the answers to our prayers are already in our hands, (think: the prophet’s widow who had just a little oil) and how God multiplies what we have to meet a need (think: two fish, five loaves).
When it seems our prayers cannot reach heaven, what we need is freshness and flowing water in our lives, but there’s too much in the way. Our waters are stagnant and foul.
It all boils down to this: We can want more than we have, but when we take more than we need, we lose more than we gain. Sometimes that great loss even causes us to be lost.
But there’s never any loss in God’s kingdom. Remember -- He uses everything.