JOY ALERT! June 7, 2008

Joy Alert!! June 6, 2008

John 15:4-5
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me….If a man (any believer) remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

This past week the Lord blessed me with the opportunity to get away for a couple of days to have concentrated time of “remaining” in Him so that I can be more fruitful for him. Through the generosity of a couple who supports the ministry, I was given a quiet and peaceful place along the water to be still and listen to the Father’s heart.

As mentioned in previous ministry updates I have been slowly working through the gospel of John and it just so happened that today’s reading assignment was John 15:1-6. As many of you know, John 15 is the passage of scripture that I use in the JoyShop for participates to practice what they have learned in the workshop. So with much joy this morning, I picked up my little pocket testament, read the assigned verses, and then began to work my way through the detailed commentary’s remarks on this brief passage. The Holy Spirit taught me so much but I will try to summarize a key point or two.

The Lord tells his disciples to remain in Him repeatedly in John 15. The word, remain, in the Greek means “to abide, continue, to dwell.” In other words Jesus tells us to maintain our fellowship with God with vigilance! Why? Because, He is the vine, we are the branches, and the sole purpose of the vine is to produce fruit for our Father, the gardener. This morning the Holy Spirit reminded me in a forceful way that my time on earth is not about me and my desires but about the Lord Jesus, producing fruit through my life for the Father. John 15: 8 confirms this, when Jesus spoke to the disciples, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciple.”

It is my responsibility to abide in personal communion with God it is His responsibility to produce the fruit!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God the Father has granted us life, physically and spiritually. It is His desire that we produce much fruit while we have breath for His glory. There is no other purpose. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to waste my life chasing after the things of this world. I want a life that bears fruit for the Father! And this can only be accomplished through abiding in him. In the words of Arthur Pink, “To abide in Him, then, is to have sustained conscious communion with Him. To abide in Christ signifies the constant occupation of the heart with Him—a daily active faith in Him.”

Have you thought much of Him today? Are you occupied with an intense focus of dependency on Him as you go about your day? Friend, we can do nothing apart from Him. Nothing means NOTHING! Big or small, whatever we are doing today, we need to do in dependency on Him. And if we truly desire Jesus to own us so that he can produce fruit through us, then we have the responsibility to have constant communion with him on a daily basis. Then we can rest. We don’t have to produce fruit. God the Father does it for us through Jesus. May we bow our hearts before God right now, confessing our lack of being occupied with Him and our lack of bearing much fruit. May we each take personal responsibility to guard our time alone with Him. Our number one priority has to be daily time in the Word so that we may have fellowship with the Father and that He may produce the fruit he desires in our life. Apart from intimacy with the Father there will be no fruit. PERIOD!

Joy Alerts:

Praise God for the fruit that came from our time at a church in New Tripoli, Pa. This JoyShop was opened up to the community and close to 50 women were in attendance plus a few men! A few comments we received:

“Thank you so much for coming today. It really made me consider about seeking God first every day.”

“Thank you for speaking clearly and lovingly of God so that I could understand the path of putting God first in my life. The first step in my journey begins TODAY!”

“I needed this so much. I appreciate the love and acceptance that I received.”

From a teen: “Thank you for coming and telling your story and stuff.”

Frequently we get comments like the following:
“I wish I would have brought some friends with me. I hope there will be a next time.”

One of the hardest things for me to endure personally is the fact that I know that in the audience there are many people sitting there thinking the very same thing. This is why I continually ask you to pray as a team that everywhere Joyshop Ministries goes, that the Holy Spirit will draw those He wants there and that some day He will cause thousands to flock to a JoyShop so that there can be an awakening of the spiritually dead, and new fruit producing lives for the glory of God.

Praise God for the opportunity God has given me to take JoyShop to my own congregation during the month of June. I am teaching it during both Sunday school hours. The first Sunday there were over 200+ in attendance ages 14-80! One man came up to me afterwards who had never attended a JoyShop before. He told me that he had tickets for Hershey Park the next Sunday, but he didn’t want to miss the next session so he planned to give up some of his time at this amusement park to learn more about how to seek God. PRAISE THE LORD!

I also received an email from a man in our congregation telling me how awesome the first session had been and how he was looking forward to the next four Sundays. He said,
“wow what an adventure looking up each verse on seeking God... and then I read the sub notes about each verse... Thank you so much for the Joyshop.
Everyday I try to spend at least a 1/2 hr in God’s word doing your workshop.”

Another blessing I received this week came through the mail by a mother from my church, “Just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that my son really enjoyed listening to you speak on Sunday. He was proud to show me his JoyShop notebook and eager to show me he was filling in the blanks. This all coming from a child who didn’t think he wanted to go to JoyShop. I had been encouraging him to attend during the month of June. I was so encouraged by his excitement and I just wanted to pass it on to you.”

Please pray that God will use Joyshop Ministries to impact many lives at my church and that we will become a fruit bearing people to reach our community.

Remember how the Pocket Testament League partnered with us in producing a Joyshop Ministries pocket testament? They printed 20,000 and sent us 4,000 to start with. On April 7 of this year, they sent out an email to all of their members introducing our pocket testament. Six weeks later, all 16,000 pocket testaments are gone!!!! Praise God!! Members liked the look of our pocket testament and the title on the front, “Letter from God.” Think of all the people that will be receiving our pocket testament with the 21 Day Challenge on the inside cover. Pray that everyone who receives these will take the challenge and grow in their knowledge of God. Here is a story that was recently published on their website from a woman who had attended a JoyShop:

"I received my testament at a ladies retreat. it was a very special gift to me. It showed me that God does love me no matter what i have been through. I recently committed myself to Jesus and became a member of my church and am considering baptism. I would like to share my experiences with others hoping that they too can come to know that our savior loves them as well."

How exciting, how thrilling that the Lord allowed us to hand this young lady her own pocket testament and to now have the joy of seeing the fruit! Just think of the lives this woman will impact!

Our June/July Newsletter just went out and I instantly received this wonderful message through face book:

"I enjoyed the newsletter I just read. I know it had a good word in it for me and I enjoyed reading your views on how to approach "an encounter with Jesus". That was good and I needed to read that. I forwarded the message to my dad - the part about being discouraged. I think he will really take a lot from that just given life circumstances right now. Thanks for the time you take to make that letter!!"

Comments like this make all the time I put into writing the newsletter worth it! If you are not receiving the bi-monthly newsletter then please notify Deb Risser at info@joyshop.org.

I am sorry for those who missed the JoyShop Ministries Cookout last Sunday night at our home. My husband, Paul, was the chef, and we had lots of food and wonderful fellowship. There were 50+ in attendance and it was a blessing for all of us to see who all is involved in supporting the ministry through prayers, time volunteered, and finances. I enjoyed the blessing of being able to share personally some of the highlights of this year as well as projecting what we see in the future.

Praise the Lord for the finances that continue to come in. As we make plans to do some professional taping for promotional purposes, etc, please pray that the necessary funds will come in to complete the project in a timely way.

Prayer for the following upcoming events:
June 11: JoyShop Ministries Board meeting
June 12: Lancaster County Youth Intervention
June 19: Cocalico Place (Retirement facility)
June 29: Byerland Mennonite Youth

June 12 is open to anyone who feels led to partner with us in corporate prayer for the ministry from 7:00-8:00 p.m. at my home.

I praise God for each of you who have allowed me the opportunity to share my heart with you. Your partnership with JoyShop Ministries is significant to me, the advisory board, and the volunteers who run the daily operations of JoyShop Ministries. May you press on to take hold of Jesus and all His fruit He wants to produce through you! Amen!


Seeking God First---Anita