Daily Archives: May 5, 2014

A Legacy Restored

Bible Study, , , ,

A LEGACY RESTORED 

“‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that you joy may be complete.'” John 15:9-11 NIV.

Up to this point Jesus had not spoken of His love for His disciples; only His love for the Father displayed by His obedience to His Father’s commands. It was this love between the Father and the Son which kept Jesus steadfast and secure through all the tests of His humanity, tests which were ultimately about who and what He valued the most.

In the midst of the turmoil the disciples were experiencing, Jesus was now giving them the anchors which would hold them steady when their boats rocked in the storm. Their security lay in their confidence in His presence, in His Word and in His love. To remain meant to be sure of and to be true to those things that would not change in their changing circumstances.

When Adam and Eve chose their own way in the Garden of Eden, they forfeited the union with God which secured them in His presence, in His love and in His joy. What they had at the beginning was replaced by a sense of loss, insecurity and fear. They had forfeited their source of strength, provision and protection in God and were driven from the garden to make their own way, alienated from God and left to their own devices.

The world is a very insecure place. Because the majority of mankind had rejected God and His way and substituted their own, they are left anchorless and rudderless in the storms of life. Human beings foolishly put their confidence in things that have no lasting substance — money, relationships, achievements, position and status, and even images of their own creation, be they made out of materials or imagination.

Jesus had clearly demonstrated in the three and a half years they had known Him that He had security in the Father’s love that could not be duplicated by anyone or anything else. Now He was offering the same security to them if they would risk everything by believing what He said and throwing themselves onto Him.

This was the only way for them to receive what Adam and the human race after him had lost — God’s joy, the sense of delight, pleasure and well-being that comes from living in perfect harmony with God’s nature and will. David made this discovery centuries before as he lived his life in pursuit of God: “You will show me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11 NKJV.

How did the disciples receive yet another revelation of truth from Jesus at this time of turmoil and confusion? Even if it made no sense to them then, He was once again sowing the seeds of truth into their spirits that would come alive when the Holy Spirit invaded their lives at Pentecost and brought the understanding they lacked at that moment. Perhaps Jesus’ words echoed in their hearts as they witnessed the terrible things that were happening to their Master. Perhaps they even drew comfort from them as they watched Him suffer. He loved them just as the Father loved Him. What did that mean to them?

What do those words mean to you when your world spins out of control? Our natural inclination is to blame God, to hold Him responsible for not intervening to prevent the catastrophes that come suddenly and without warning. We think that God should shelter us from the things that hit others because we belong to Him.

How little we understand of God’s ways! Faith untested remains flabby and useless like muscles that are never used. It is a loving Father who allows the tests that prise our fingers loose from the useless things we hang onto and teaches us to cling to Him because He is the only reliable and immovable one we have in life whose nature and promises are unshakeable. God is for us, not against us. No matter what disasters hit, He is always there and He is always working in them for our good.

Life is lived forward and understood backwards. Only when we look back can we see the path we have walked and the value of the experiences we have walked through. Only if we have chosen to remain in His love can we understand the greatness of that love when we see the outcome of our suffering.

The Father loved the Son and allowed Him to go through death for us. The prophet took a backward look and triumphantly declared: “Yet it pleased the Lord to put Him to grief. When you make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labour of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge my righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities.

Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Isaiah 53:10-12 NKJV.

Disconnected!

Bible Study, , ,

DISCONNECTED! 

“If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John 15:6-8 NIV.

The vine leaves glistened silver in the moonlight as Jesus and His disciples made their way through the vineyard towards the olive grove. Jesus bent down and lifted up a fallen branch that had become disconnected from the vine. The leaves were withered and turning brown. The branch was dry and brittle. It was obvious that the branch was dead.

Turning to His disciples, He showed them the branch and taught them a simple object lesson. ‘See this branch,’ He said softly. ‘It is lifeless because it broke off the vine. It has no value now; all it’s good for is to be burnt. The only way a branch can bear fruit is to remain attached to the vine. You are just like the branch of a vine. If you maintain your connection with me, you will bear fruit just like the branch that remains attached to the vine.’

Amazingly, remaining attached requires no hard work while becoming detached takes effort. To break one’s connection with Jesus means that you have to reach the conclusion that there is no value in continuing to trust Him and then actively to walk away from Him, renouncing the truth you once believed and turning back to the worthless ways of the world.

To remain in the vine is to keep trusting in Him and allowing His word to shape your thinking and acting. How does the branch remain in the vine? By doing nothing except receiving the life of the vine as it pushes up into the branch. The water and nutrients that flow from the vine into the branches provide the nourishment that keeps the branch alive and supple, and eventually produces the grapes in season which is the only function of the vine.

Like the vine, fruitfulness is the primary function of the believer. What is fruit? Many Christian teachers believe that the measure of fruitfulness is reckoned in terms of the number of “souls” one wins to the Lord, like Red Indians counting scalps. Is this what the Word teaches us?

Fruit is what reveals the nature of the tree. “‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit…Thus, by their fruit you will recognise them.'” Matthew 7:15-17; 20 NIV.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…” Galatians 5:22, 23 NIV.

The Pharisees had issues with Jesus because He healed on the Sabbath. To “work” on the Sabbath was abhorrent to them while, to Jesus, to do a work of kindness was what the Sabbath was all about. Why? Because works of kindness revealed His true nature as the Son of the Father. They called Him Beelzebub because of His good works. He called them children of the devil because of their hatred and plotting to murder Him. It was the fruit that revealed the nature of the tree.

Fruitfulness takes no effort but to remain in the vine and the fruit of remaining in the vine is answered prayer. The secret of answered prayer is not persuading God by much prayer but the branch remaining in the vine and the word remaining in the branch, the nourishment of the word flowing from the vine to the branch.

This is not labour but rest!

The True Vine

Bible Study, , ,

THE TRUE VINE 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also 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. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:1-5 NIV.

Jesus and His disciples had left the upper room where they had eaten their last Passover meal together. They made their way through the dark streets of the city towards the olive grove called Gethsemane. As they walked slowly through the vineyard outside the city wall, Jesus must have stopped and fingered the vine leaves, recalling His intimate knowledge of the Scriptures.

Israel was symbolically God’s vineyard. In Isaiah 5, the prophet sang a song about His vineyard – “I will sing of the one I love, a song about His vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut a wine-press as well.”

Imagine God’s disappointment when, after all the preparation and care He had given His vineyard, it produced a crop so bad that it was worthless to Him. “Then He looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it only yield bad?”

Because His people had failed to fulfil His destiny for them, He had no option but to send them into exile, away from His presence in His temple and from their land so that they would learn to distance themselves from the idols and the wickedness of the surrounding nations.

“Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.

“The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines He delighted in. And He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.” Isaiah 5:1-7 NIV.

There was only one “vine” that could satisfy the desire of the Father for good grapes and abundant fruitfulness — Jesus Christ, His own Son. Instead of Israel, He was the true vine that represented and took the place of God’s people who had failed to live up to His expectation. Jesus was not only the true vine but the way for God to replant His vineyard and reap crops of good grapes through those who would believe in Him.

The way of fruitfulness is the way of abiding or remaining in union with the true vine. Being joined to the vine and remaining in fellowship with Him is the only guarantee that we will produce the fruit that will bring delight to the heart of the Father. The vine, the stock, is perfect and needs no cultivation. It is the branches that need constant attention so that they will be as fruitful as they can possibly be.

The vine-dresser has ways of improving the fruitfulness of the branches. He lifts up, cleans and reattaches the branches that trail down into the dust, not “cutting them off” but treating them so that they will become fruitful again. He prunes the fruitful branches, removing everything that will hinder the production of grapes.

The branches have no other responsibility but to remain in the vine. As long as we are attached to the vine and receiving the sap of its life, we shall be fruitful — revealing the nature of the vine in our lives. The Father’s role is to cultivate and prune the branches according to His skill as the vine-dresser so that the fruit we bear is the fruit that reveals the true nature of the vine.