At the weekend I saw this bag (pictured above). I find it amazing that at times the prophets of this world are more aware of what the Father is saying than those who say they know him. They may not know they are aware, but they are tuned into the wavelength of what the Spirit is saying and they catch it and they put it on bags and in other places!

The message on this bag is one that the Father is saying to each of us, if our ears are open and we are listening to him. It is that what is outside of us isn’t important, but it’s what’s inside us that counts. Father is encouraging us to choose Life, to remain in Jesus and him in us. He is encouraging us that what is outside is nothing if the Life is not within us, and that all is flowing from him.

It’s very easy to forget this. We can get caught up with what’s outside of us, so much so that we fail to remember that the Life is within us, and we yearn for something that we think is outside of us and fail to recognise that Father will reveal his Son in us if we simply ask him.

He doesn’t just say it the once. He is continually reminding us. He reminds us that, as Jesus said, unless we eat of him as the Bread of Life, and drink of him, the Spring of Living Water, we have no Life in us. When life gets complicated, we have the reminder to return to the simplicity of Bread and Water, to eat and drink of Jesus himself. And something happens. The complications fade away, we become conscious of this Life in us again. We are aware of the flow of Life as we simplify to become the branch that he has chosen us to be. Where we are not forcing anything, but simply focused on remaining in him and him in us; abiding in the Vine.

Then we become conscious of the gentle nudges, or the whispers of the Spirit, “Go here,” “Say this,” “Do this.” We become sensitive to the little seeds he wants to sow into others. Or to the harvest in front of us that is ready to be reaped. And we become sensitive to the nudges that say, “It’s time to withdraw with me a while.” How many of us are comfortable doing that? This is not merely having my quiet time each day. This is Father drawing me away from the apparent success, the people, the great things that are happening, and just like Jesus climbing that ‘mountain’ to be with my Father.

Do we struggle to put down our activity to simply be?

Do we get caught in doing, so that it’s not until we are so tired and burnt out and long past effectively sharing the Life within us, that we are brought to our knees so to speak and forced to stop? Perhaps through illness, or fatigue, or other circumstances which stop us in our tracks.

His reminder to us is constant. It’s out of our being, our consciousness of Christ in us, that Life flows from the Vine. Father urges us, encourages us to remain. It’s that he invites us to a level of consciousness where there is no let up of Life flow. It is simply to remain. I don’t think I can stress this point enough!

If it’s true that it’s what’s inside that counts (and it really is true), then we require this awareness for life. “Unless…..” If you do, you have Life in you. If you don’t, well, you don’t. Not the Life that the Father is offering us all.

Let’s each of us today be consciously aware that it’s what’s inside that counts, saying again, “Father, reveal your Son in me now.”

Eat the Bread, drink the Living Water.