For Your Profit

Proverbs 3:5,6

Marcus Lemonis, also known as 'The Profit' to cable viewers, hosts a television show with the intent to help failing/struggling businesses. He appears to be a very successful businessman ready to invest his resources. It appears that these businesses approach him because his reputation testifies of his ability to settle and strengthen. For his resources and abilities he requires a percentage of ownership in the business and FULL CONTROL of operations.

He explains the parameters to the current owners and they agree or he excuses himself from the process. Those who follow his advice seem to be very glad in the end. His resources and abilities stream-line the operation and bring growth. There are those who approach him for assistance but are unwilling to agree to his requirements. They want help but their current state of mind causes them to think that he wants too much in return.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, (trusting, as Jesus did, that God would raise Him from the dead {Romans 10:9}) and LEAN NOT on your own understanding; in all YOUR WAYS acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths (or make them straight)."

Mr. Lemonis makes a requirement for his investment and abilities. God, as He instructs in the proverb, desires that we trust in Him with all our heart, understanding what is the hope of Jesus Christ's calling. The mechanism for this victory is sending no roots down as you lean, ready to acknowledge Him as He speaks.

"Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."(Hebrews 12:11) Those who follow Mr. Lemonis' chastening receive a healthier business. Those who receive the chastening of the Lord receive the reward that is in His hand - eternal life; exceedingly, abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power that works within!

Jesus Had What He Said

Mark 11:11-23

"And Jesus went into Jerusalem, and into the temple. So when He looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve. Now the next days, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. In response Jesus said to it, 'Let no one eat fruit from you ever again'. And His disciples heard it."

John 5:19,20 reads, "Then Jesus answered and said to them, 'Most assuredly I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and SHOWS Him all things that He Himself does.....' "

John 12:49,50 reads, "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command IS everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."

Therefore, we must conclude that the Father told Jesus to end the existence of that fig tree. 

"Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter, remembering, said to Him, 'Rabbi, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered away.' "  Jesus had what He said; and immediately began to teach them how to have the same by removing that which stands in the way: "this mountain".

"This mountain" would stand between us and becoming one with the Father and the Son who are One (John 17:21); between us and becoming the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. "This mountain" is the unwillingness to turn to God as Jesus Christ, the Living Word, is being revealed to us.

"For assuredly, (Jesus Christ) says to you, whoever says to THIS MOUNTAIN, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea', and does not doubt in his heart but believes that those things that he is saying will be done, HE WILL HAVE WHATEVER HE SAYS." He will understand clearly and act upon only those things the Father (in the name of the Son, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit) is showing him!

We Have The Petitions That We Ask .....Of Him

1 John 5:14,15

"Now this is the confidence that we have IN HIM, that if we ask anything ACCORDING TO HIS WILL, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked OF HIM."

In 2006, as I was leaving the office for the day, the Lord spoke to my spirit by the Holy Spirit: "Ask of Me, of Myself I will give to you!" It was loud inside me and I remember it exactly. God, by His Holy Spirit, reminds me of this regularly. God's will for man is a new creation of their spirit; the empowerment of man by the Holy Spirit that we may be witnesses to Him - becoming the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Every one the same yet different callings within it.

An example would be a son/daughter asking a father/mother to explain and teach to them the very best attributes of their heritage so that they themselves could do likewise. Natural man always has shortcomings. Jesus was tempted in every way yet without sin! I expect a heart-felt request like that would elicit a heart-felt response from the parent. How much more from God the Father regarding his Son so that "we may know what is the hope of His calling"?

When James and John, the sons of Zebedee, asked Jesus to appoint them seats to His right and left IN HIS GLORY, Jesus replied to them, since they asked: "You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with (meaning death on the cross)? Jesus said that was not His to give them. If we ask of the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, so that we may be one with them by the Holy Spirit, we cannot ask amiss. Of Himself He gives!