Issue 1474 – Daily Grind – June 14, 2024
It won’t surprise anyone who knows me, but I confess that I enjoy a good cup of coffee. Now, my coffee-snob friends would disagree with the adjective “good” and say that perhaps I liked some form of brown water.
It’s true that I have my brand preferences and am not enamoured with most of the so-called gourmet coffees. I couldn’t tell a Jamaican Blue Mountain from a Hawaiian Kona or some other specialty bean or blend.
I am partial to a brand that comes in a big red tin and used to be known as “the best part of waking up.”
Coffee is primarily made from the roasted beans of the Arabica and Robusta plants. Many other varieties of coffee exist, but their beans are toxic. Within the Arabica and Robusta families are thousands of varieties and sub-varieties, making the selection of flavours and combinations virtually limitless. There are certainly too many options for my simple, uneducated taste buds.
Coffee beans are amazing. You can make coffee by simply soaking a few beans in cold water. It won’t be a quality beverage, but it will be coffee.
Or you can roast the beans, grind them, and brew them in boiling water. The beans and water are the same, but what a difference in the results! Applying some heat and the pressure of grinding makes things so much better.
That’s how God works in people’s lives as well. He can use a hardened heart like that of Pharaoh or Judas Iscariot to accomplish things, but what a difference it is when He works with a willing heart! Yes, we will go through the heat and the pressures of life. Yet, we will be ground and shaped into something more beautiful. As this happens, the sweetest of brews results.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:19-25
We are transformed from bitter, sour vessels that are barely useable into vessels of immeasurable worth by His grace.
The LORD doesn’t prepare us all the same way. Different coffees from diverse areas, with unique growing conditions and needs, are handled differently and make different coffee flavours. It’s the same with the elect of God. He chooses us, grinds and heats each of us differently, and makes the “perfect” blend.
Will you work with the Spirit to become a rich, flavourful brew, or will you fight against Him and become a cold, weak, flavourless beverage?
Until next time, remember that God permits the trials of life to shape us into becoming everything He designed us to be.
There will be no Gleanings tomorrow as I am taking the day off to celebrate Father’s Day. I will return on Monday. See you then.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the glory of God alone)
Never let the enemy tell you that you are worthless or insignificant. Your value in God’s eyes is so great that it was worth dying for. You are a blessing to the world. You are so precious to God that his plan for heaven will not be complete without you.
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Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV)