THE VINE

"I am the True Vine and my Father is the Vinedresser."  John 15:1

The Vine of the grape is the trunk that brings sap up from the roots into the branches.  The sap must be allowed to flow freely into the branch in order to produce fruit.  The vine gives its life to thebranch by the branch staying attached to the vine.

A good crop of grapes does not just happen.  A good vineyard has a dedicated 'vinedresser' whom in the case of the child of God, is God the Father.  Each branch is important to the vinedresser, to bring forth the finest crop possible.  If a branch is left to itself, it straggles over rocks and handy tree trunks.  Or it may fall to the ground and creep along in the dirt and mud.  The vinedresser will come along, clean off the branch, prune it where needed, and tie it close to the vine.  Soon the branch is thriving again.  The branch must remain totally dependent on the vine, close to it, pruned here, pruned there, in order to bring forth much fruit.

Do you see the analogy here?  Jesus said He is the true Vine.  His followers, you and me included, are the branches.  We are created for a living relationship with the Vine, Jesus, and the Vine gives His life to the branch,.  Unless we stay close and feed on the vine, we will get straggly, sickly and produce no fruit for the Father.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  Every

 branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every

branch that bears fruit He prunes that it may bear more fruit.  I am

the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him,

bears much fruit...By this my Father is glorified, that you bear 

much fruit."

John 15:1-2, 5,8

A NEW CREATION!

“Strip yourselves of your former nature (put off and discard your old unrenewed self) which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lusts and desires that spring from delusion.  And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind (having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude).  And put on the new nature (the regenerate self) created in God’s image, (Godlike) in true righteousness and holiness.”  Ephesians 4:22-24 (Amplified)

The day we accept Christ as Savior, we become a new being.  Isaiah 61:3 tells us that He took ashes and gave me beauty.  In Isaiah 61:10 it states: “(You) clothed me with garments of salvation, (You) have wrapped me in a robe of righteousness…as a bride adorned with her jewels.”  II Cor. 5:17 says:  “if any person is in Christ he is a new creation.”  In Colossians 3:10 (Amplified): “And have clothed yourself with the new spiritual self, which is renewed and remolded … after the image of Him who created it.”

These verses are saying that we are a new and beautiful creation in God’s sight!  We have a new spiritual self!  Someday we shall even have a new body, a glorified body, and one like Christ’s glorified body.  David is one who realized this when he stated in Psalm 17:15, “I shall be satisfied when I wake in thy likeness.”  Paul tells us in Philippians 3:21:  “(Lord Jesus Christ) shall change our lowly body that it may be fashioned like His glorious body…”

We will be changed as a worm is to a butterfly.  My soul is a new creation, and soon my body will be also.

“Like developing butterflies,

We are to shed the cocoon

Of our sinful nature that we might

Emerge into the beauty of Christ.”

(Unknown)

Can We Know God?

Can we as mere mortals, really have knowledge of God?  Back in ancient times the Children of Israel would not even say His name, Yahweh; they felt it an irreverence to be on such friendly terms as to call Him by name.

But Jesus changed all of that when He died on the Cross in our place, and rose from the grave so that we might have life everlasting.  He wants us to know God.  Here is what He told His disciples: “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)

With the thought I am writing of today, I am not thinking of finding out what God is like.  My concern  is that we have some knowledge of thinking rightly about God in our personal association.  Jesus says that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father, and we are in Him.  If we are so close to God as being one with Him, we should not be afraid of Him.  In John 17 verses 20 through 26 Jesus is praying for each of us to know we are loved by God.

In I Corinthians 2 it is made clear that we have been given the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself (God) to us.  I like the way verse 10 is written in “The Message” translation: “But you’ve seen and heard it because God by His Spirit has brought it all out into the open for you.”

To get to know God, however, we must spend time with Him.  You don’t get to know someone if you never speak to him or her.  This only comes by being often and long with Him, reading the Word, praying.  By doing this we learn to trust His dealings with us.  Prayer is not coming to God to ask for favors, it is fellowship with Him until He actually has possession of us.  When we actually ‘know’ our God, we will not even ask why, or ask about dark days, or ask for petty material things.  We will just know God will bring all out according to His will.  In John 14:1 Jesus says “Do not let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated).  You believe and adhere to and trust in and rely on God;”

My Prayer:  O Lord, I know of no greater pleasure than to be called Your friend, and to know that I have the Spirit within me to make known to me the things of the Father.  May I be open to the Spirit, eager to learn, ready to receive all there is for me.  With Paul, “I bow my knees”; yea, I even fall on my face before the Father, asking for an anointing of knowledge from the Spirit, and to know the love of Christ as a fire in my soul.  Amen

    “The Christian life is knowing God in a personal love-relationship”

 

Abba! Father!

"...but you have received a 'spirit of adoption' as sons by which we cry out "Abba! Father!"
Romans 8:15b

The Hebrew word of 'Ab', or Aramaic 'Abba' means 'daddy' or 'papa'.  This eventually came to mean 'dear father'.  Three places in the New Testament, God the Father is referred to as 'Abba'.  In Mark 14:36, when Jesus was pouring out His heart to the Father, sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, His cry was to "Abba, Father", or "Father, my Father".  To put it even plainer as to the Hebrew and Aramaic interpretation, He was saying "Daddy, my very own Daddy".

In Romans 8:14, 15 it is telling us that the believer is a 'son' (or daughter) of God, and we can cry "Abba, Father".  Then in Galatians 4:6 it says we have the Spirit of Jesus to confirm that we are sons and daughters, by crying out for us "Abba, Father".

How can we as mere mortals, have such a close association with God that we can call Him Father, or Daddy?  We become God's children by placing our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord.  God receives us into His family and our sins are forgiven.  When our 'Daddy' looks at us, He sees us as a pure and forgiven child because of what Jesus did on Calvary.

Prayer:  Father, my Father!  I thank You for the gift of becoming Your child.  I thank You for being my Father and providing all my needs.  May I always glorify You and may others see me as Your child.  I want to be a reflection of Your love and image, so that I can hear others say "she has her Father's eyes."  I thank You in the precious name of Jesus.  Amen

God's Indescribable Gift

"Thanks be to God for His Indescribable gift."  II Corinthians 9:15

God's special gift to us is "indescribable", it is amazing, it is beyond our comprehension.  This gift is Jesus, all wrapped up in love!  Of  Himself, Jesus said, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water."  (John 4:10) 

Because of God's wonderful gift, we can have other  gifts such as a 'gift of a relationship with God'.  John 1:12 states that all who receive Him, (this gift) those who believe in His name, Hegives the right to be called the sons and daughters of God.

He also gives the 'gift of His Grace'.  Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by Grace you have been saved..."  We have received the 'gift of Eternal  Life', as according to Romans 6:23:  "...but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

One reason I think of God's gift as being 'indescribable'  and perhaps part of Paul's thinking in II Cor. 9:15, is that it is greater than we can grasp with our finite minds. Jesus was God, second person in the Trinity, totally God.  Yet in order to become the propitiation for man's sin, He had to take on a human body.  In doing so He had to become a human being. Now we have something beyond our imagination, something incredible, beyond words, indescribable.  He was still God, just as though He had never been man; yet He was man as though He had never been God.

And He did this as a gift to each of us!

"For God so loved the world that He gave (this indescribable gift) His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him will not perish but have eternal life."  John 3:16

Praise to God

"Let everything that has breath Praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord!  Psalm 150:6

Why should we praise God?
Psalm 63:3 answers this question: “Because Your loving kindness is better than life, my lips will praise you.”  In II Samuel 22:4 is says “I call on the Lord, who is Worthy to be praised…” In Psalm 48:1 “Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised…”  Psalm 65:1 states it like it is: “…praise is due and fitting to You, O God, in Zion…” From these verses we read that He is great, He is Worthy, He is an awesome God and it is His due.

By Praising God we will keep our focus on the Him; Praise is a way of helping us to obey God’s commands.  You cannot refuse His commands, and praise Him at the same time.  It just doesn’t work.

How are we to Praise God?
The answer to this question is found in Psalm 138:1 “I will praise thee with my whole heart….”  Psalm 34:1 says that His Praise shall continually be in my mouth.  Psalm 63:3 states that we will praise Him with our lips.    Psalm 103:33 states that we should ‘sing’ praises to God.     We who are children of God should praise Him with our whole heart; we should praise him continually with our lips and with singing.

When should we praise God?
In I Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul tells us to be joyful always; pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, as this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. We should praise Him in the midst of trials, and it will help us to see our trials as friends (James 1:2-4).   Psalm 72:15 and 119:164 both say that we should praise Him “all day long.”   Psalm 63: 4 states the “I will bless You while I live, I will lift up my hands in your name.”   In Psalm 84:4 we find that  “they will be singing Your praises all the day”.   Psalm 113:3 says that we should praise Him “from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord’s name is to be praised.”  We never stop praising the Lord!

My Prayer: O Lord, I praise You that You are in control of my life.  I praise You whatever befalls me.  I accept and trust Your working in my life.  I will praise You in everything and continually, for this is my “Sacrifice of Prayer.”  Amen

Why Do We Have the Old Testament?

I have been asked what my favorite part of the Bible is.  It is difficult to pick out a favorite section of the Bible.  I have gone through the whole Bible,  chapter by chapter, every day for the past several years, and each time I go through it again, I glean something new from the most unexpected areas.  .

These past few weeks I have been reading I Chronicles.  In I Chronicles we learn about David’s life, but there are many chapters listing genealogies, names of warriors, and musicians, and tabernacle workers and all listing whose sons they were.  This can get very boring, but right in the middle of all the ‘sons of’ may be a gem.  Chapter 4 is an example that shows lists of names, and suddenly 2 verses about a fellow named Jabez, whom the Lord blessed.

Then after plodding through more lists of names, and sons of so and so, in chapter 26: 5 it says:  ‘Peullethai the eighth; for God blessed him.”  Then on it goes listing more names.  I had to stop and think about this.  At first I thought the person it was speaking of was this Peullethai, but as I reread it, and noticed the punctuation, I realized the one being blessed was in verse 4, Obed-Edom.  Obed-Edom had been faithful to God in caring for the Ark when it had been dropped off back in 2 Samuel.  Peullathai was one of Obed-edom’s sons, so was blessed, also, because his father had been faithful.  This can be a lesson to us as parents.  If we are faithful, our children will be blessed as well.  Verse seven even mentions the grandchildren.

Elsewhere in this same book are words of David, sounding very much like a Psalm.  Some examples are I Chron. 16: 8-10: O give thanks to the Lord, call on His name…Sing to Him, sing praises to Him…Glory in His Holy name.”  And in verses 31-34 of chapter 16 we have all nature singing: “Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice…Let the sea roar…let the fields rejoice. then shall the trees of the wood sing out for joy before the Lord…O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy and loving kindness endure forever.”

All this from what I thought was the very ‘boring’ book of I Chronicles.  I once read that you may look lightly upon a Scripture and see nothing; meditate upon it often; there you shall see a light, like the light of the sun.  This must be what it means, as I have found that the more I read the Scriptures, the more nuggets I find.

Another thing I have found with the Old Testament, it shows us the most base of human nature.  God’s chosen nation did despicable things, turning away from God time after time.  And then the Old Testament ends nearly 400 years before Christ is born.  It would almost seem as though God had turned away from man, was just washing His hands of the whole human race.

But, as the New Testament begins, a baby is born just as predicted in the Old Testament.  And as it tells in Isaiah, the baby became the Passover Lamb, and instead of God washing His hands of mankind, His Son paid the price of all the sin handed down through all these generations, that man can be washed in the blood of that Lamb.  What a picture of Grace the New Testament gives.  And without the Old Testament, we may not see the clear picture of Grace.