The Beginning of a Fruitful Life

In John 15, we see Jesus with His disciples in a vineyard shortly before his arrest and subsequent crucifixion. Remarkably, His thoughts are on them and the trials of faith that they are about to endure as they all fail Him in His time of trial and need.

He illustrated the loving and intimate intent and nature of His Father God to cleanse us and make us fruitful by lifting up a barren branch that had been trampled in the mud and said that even if they were as this branch, and according to Romans 3:23, they and we all at one time were, His Father, as the caretaker of the vineyard, would lift them up and cleanse them so that they could be fruitful in Him*.

He does this in us by the Word of His Son Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, not by our ability to fulfill religious law and follow church dogma (Philippians 3:7-11, 1 John 5:1-11). Once believed, this truth opens up our hearts to Him knowing that He can and does take our failures, our sins against Him and others, and turns them into opportunities for His grace.

This is an ongoing work of God’s grace that is greatly facilitated by the Holy Spirit as we read and meditate on the reading of His word, the Bible, through whispers of the Holy Spirit, and prayer.

Let us be fruitful and multiply in Him and one another as we fellowship together by His Spirit! 

*See Bruce Wilkinson’s, Secrets of the Vine, pg 32-36.

The Free, Full, Forever Love of God

In Christ Jesus we see that God has given us His love freely, fully, and forever.

Freely

31 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32, NASU).

 The Son of God became man and freely laid Himself down on the Cross to pay off the debt of sin we owed and could never pay. Through His sacrificial act we have been given the Spirit of adoption who bears witness of our becoming full and legal heirs with Christ, inheriting His every spiritual blessing (Romans 8:16-17, Ephesians 1:3).

Having freely received such blessings, we have now been commissioned to freely give them wherever and however He may lead (Matthew 10:8).

Fully

33 Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 Just as it is written,

 ”FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.”

 37 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us (Romans 8:31-37, NASU).

 His victory over every earthly and spiritual enemy of His love for us and His creation is full and complete – His love never fails!

 Forever

 His victory of love on our behalf and for the glory of the Father is both now and forevermore:

 38 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NASU).

 Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Whatcha Eatin?

The Contest

I learned something about spiritual food last night while playing pickup basketball. I got  mad at how the other team was, in my opinion, winning through fouling, so I began to attempt to even the playing field by doing some fouling of my own. I did, but it didn’t work, we lost anyway. I don’t know whether to attribute our losing to my starting to foul too late (there is only so much one player can do) or to their superior field goal percentage. Either way, I ceased and desisted from utilizing that strategy after realizing that I was angrily attempting to use evil to cast out evil instead of good.

Which Fruit Tree?

Afterwards, I began reflecting on my behavior and felt shame and self-anger at my less than Christlike behavior, a familiar life-script that usually follows any behavior of mine that I judge as spiritually falling short.

But then a strange occurance took place within the inner gymnasium of my heart, a love for self began to manifest in the midst of my condemnation, shame, and anger. I was enabled to see that one set of thoughts and resulting emotions was of the flesh, and had its origins in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The other was of the Spirit and had its origins in the Tree of Life (see Genesis 1:9, 3:1-7, & Galatians 5:16-26). Furthermore, I was given discernment to know that whichever tree I ate from it’s fruit would be my food for the rest of the evening, with some being stored up for the next time I played.

In otherwise, I was trying to use anger to deal with my anger which would have only produced more anger. But God was now offering me love to deal with my spiritual failure and anger so that the next time I was in this situation I would have love and not the anger manifest. 

I was given the perception that a spiritual contest was taking place in me similar to the same one that takes place in every follower of Christ on a daily basis, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, throughout our lives here on earth. That is, the spiritual voice we listen to and eat from will be the spiritual, emotional and physical sustenance that we will live on for the present and future moments to come (see 2 Corinthians 10:3-5) .

What Fruit Are We Serving?

Whichever tree we choose to eat from will not only feed our heart, soul, mind, and strength, but will also be the fruit that is reproduced in our lives for others to eat (see Galatians 6:7-8 & Romans 7:24-8:4).

Being Thankful

I am thankful that God has provided me with the opportunity, knowledge, and wisdom to choose the Tree of Life instead of death in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I want to live and play knowing that I am sustained by His loving Spirit and not my flesh. After all, my sweat is smelly enough without it stinking like the devil and hell.

Which tree would you rather choose for me, yourself and others to eat from?

Surviving the Shipwreck

I recently saw part of the movie the Poseidon Adventure and it illustrated to me the present state of affairs of our country, its effect on the church, and actions needed for saving our spiritual, and quite possibly, our natural lives as well as lives of many others around us.

 The movie featured a group of people seeking to escape from an overturned and flooding ship. Their greatest obstacle was the water flooding into the compartments they occupied with such pressure that they were forced to wait until it filled up, thus equalizing the pressure, before they swam out.

They developed a routine of meeting together at the top of the quickly filling rooms, reviewing the latest developments, discussed strategy for reaching the next level, and after encouraging one another, taking one final breath and swimming to the next compartment.

 They worked as a team, combining their varying degrees of swimming abilities, experience, physical strength, and health, with the stronger helping the weaker or less experienced. Yet each one also assumed responsibility for themselves knowing that it was “swim or drown”. They traveled as a group, with different ones taking turns leading, until the majority of the group reached the top of the overturned ship where, with outside help, they escaped.

Interpretation and Application

The ship is this country and to some degree the church. The enemy has come in like a flood with ungodly ideologies, seeking to sink the church and the life of God in us in order to control and destroy this nation. We, the church of Christ, meeting and working together while lifting up the banner of His Cross against the worldly and Satanic pressures that are coming against us, can effectively resist and overcome him (Isaiah 59:19, John 12:32, 16:33, Revelation 12).

The air we breathe is the Spirit of God who breathes the life of God into us as we fellowship with Him. The Bible, which He authored (2 Peter 1:21), acts as a type of breathing apparatus that, as we read it, renews our mind and fills our spiritual and emotional lungs with the fresh oxygen of God’s loving truth and grace – it is as if we are receiving a type of spiritual mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from God. We breathe the Bible in when we read it and we breathe it out when we pray, worship, and/or preach and prophesy.

The Word, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, also functions as an equalizer to the ungodly pressures that come against us. It pushes back against those thoughts that would seek to take us captive, allowing us to take them captive to the knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Ultimately, we as the church and even this world we live in are in this moral shipwreck because we have trusted in our man-made systems of thought that promote our wisdom above that of God. We need help and fortunately, He was prepared from the beginning of this world to bail us out (Revelation 5:12). Through Christ we have received the Holy Spirit who supplies us with the mind of Christ for all we need for not only our deliverance but that of the world in which we live (1 Corinthians 2). Hallelujah!

Why Would He Die for Me?

My Encounter with Christ on the Cross

A mumber of years ago I was praying with several people when I had a vision of Christ laying Himself down on a cross (see John 10:17-18). He was looking at me over His left shoulder with what seemed to be bottomless eyes of compassion. I was aware that He was about to voluntarily die even though He was sinless, pure, holy, and totally undeserving of death. I was also aware that unlike Him, I was guilty of sin and deserving of death. Yet I tearfully implored Father God to stop this senseless death asking why He, an innocent man, having done no wrong, had to die. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t just, how could this happen? why would this happen?

The Bottomless Pit of Darkness

I was then alone in a place of utter darkness, a darkness without beginning or end, an eternal darkness without human or spiritual company. I was at a point and place of despair with a sense of suffocating aloneness. There was no way out and I begged God to save me, to deliver me from this pit of despair (see Matthew 8:12, 13:42 & 50, 24:51, 25:30; Jude 13).

Back to the Cross

With great relief (an understatement) I was back to Christ laying Himself on the cross with the realization that unless He died for me then that hellish pit of darkness was my deserved place of eternal destiny. At that point, I would have done or given Him anything to die for me but He had already made the choice and all I could do was thank Him over and over again, worshipping Him for His willingness to die for me. 

Why?

Why would He do this for me? Because He is the good shepherd who- as the perfect lamb of God- was willing and able to redeem me (= buy me back) from my sin through the shedding of His blood.

 14 “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,  15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.  16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with  one shepherd.  17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.  18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father” (John 10:14-18, NASU).

Our Response

Jesus came and died, that is an historical fact. We either choose to believe His claim and that of His followers that He was the Son of God who died for our sins, or we reject it. To ignore or reject His claim or seek to add or subtract from it is to deny Him and His Father and to live and die in our sins. We can’t add to it and we can’t take away from it; we can’t pay for His performance and we can’t improve upon it; it is all or nothing, acceptance or rejection.

A New Song to Sing

Those who choose this most precious gift for what it is, the gift of God’s love for a lost and dying world, reconciling and restoring us as sons and daughters of God with a profound destiny in Him, are given a new song to sing:

9 And they sang a new song, saying, ” Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. 10 “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth. 12…Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” 13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, “To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (Revelation 5:9-13, NASU).

Are are you singing this song?

 

 

Love Made Visible

The Love of God has been manifested to the whole world in Jesus Christ who loved His Father and us (John 3:16, 1 John 4:2-3,9).

As we believe in and worship Him who is spirit and truth, being obedient to His command to love, we grow in the knowledge of His love for ourselves and others.

19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:19-20, NASU).

As we love those who cannot see Him and His love we demonstrate to them and ourselves that God’s love is real and abides in us. After all, He loves others as well as ourselves and to love them is to love those whom He loves. To not love those whom He loves means that we have rejected that part of Him which loves them which is sin and actually hinders our faith in God’s love.

Are we in love with God? Have we truly received His love in Christ as payment for our sins?

Do we forgive others and choose to love them with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength as we do Him?

To the degree that we are and do is the degree to which we love Him and others. Let us continue to grow in the knowledge of this love through reading the Bible, prayer, worship, spiritual fellowship, and loving one another.     

True Love

There are times when we aren’t (or weren’t) loved as we desire (d) to be. This mental or emotional awareness invariably tempts us to believe thoughts and feelings of rejection similar to “what is wrong with me, I must be unlovable;” “He, she, or they are liked or loved more than me,” etc.

This can lead to our feeling “less than” so we begin striving to find love through performance of mind, body, and/or soul which, when successful, leads to our feeling “more than” or “better than” (= competitive pride). When unsuccessful, it leads to fear, jealousy, resentment, anger, rage, and even murder of heart and sometimes deed (James 3:13-4:4).

Both streams of thoughts and emotions lead us away from believing in and experiencing God’s unconditional love as found through Christ who, even when we were in the condition of being sinners, died on the cross as payment for our sins. So if we believed He loved us as sinners how much more can we believe His love for us as saints?!

8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation (Romans 5:8-11, NIV).

This alone is to be the determination of our value and whether or not we are conditionally or unconditionally loved and can then love others with the same love that we have received.

    10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1 John 4:10-11, NIV).

Inheriting the Promises Through Patience

After posting the word about God’s patient love for us the Holy Spirit brought this scripture to mind: 

10 For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints. 11 And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises (Hebrews 6:9-12, NASU).  

 

It is God’s love for us and the world that causes Him to endure pain, longsuffering, patient endurance, and ill treatment in a cheerful and hopeful manner. It is true with us as well. His goal is that we would love as He loved us in Christ Jesus and as Jesus loved us enough to lay down His life for us. Love cheerfully, hopefully, painfully endures what lust will not.

I want us to inherit all of God’s promises to us in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20). Let us lovingly and patiently endure as God does so we too will hear, ”this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” 

Love In Him,

Dave 

  

God’s Great Patient Love for Us

I was talking to someone about how love patiently and cheerfully suffers while waiting for what it desires (I Corinthians 13:4) and gained an insight about God’s great loving patience for us – that He so loves us that to Him 1000 years of waiting for our love to be consumated in Christ is like one day!

8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8-10, NASU)

That He, Jesus Christ, patiently (= cheerful suffering) bore our sins in Himself on the cross in anticipation of the joy of our becoming reconciled in love to the Father and betrothed to Himself as His bride (Hebrews 12:2, 1 Peter 2:24-25).

That He patiently poured out the Holy Spirit to His body as the seal and guaranteed deposit of our Life together both now and forevermore (Acts 2:33, 2 Corinthians 1:20-22).    

And that He patiently looks forward to the day when He can say to us what He has prepared for us in time before time and spoke longingly of  in Matthew 25:34-35, NASU:   

34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

Knowing this about God’s love for me causes me to love Him more and to pray for more of His patient love in me for Him, myself, and others.

Thank you for your patience! 

His Love, Like Wine

As we met in large group last Sunday, I experienced the love of God as sweet wine like that described in Song of Solomon 1:2, “For your love is better than wine.”

As persons shared words of encouragement with one another I felt the love of God in a physical way as the Holy Spirit gave witness to His approval of our spiritual and church activity- peace, joy, warmth, and the general carefree feeling that wine can give. All seemed well with my soul as New Song, the bride of Christ, experienced His loving presence in worship and prophetic edification.

18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:18-20, NIV).

May we continue to open our hearts in intimate love to Him and one another and experience His love like wine. This is loving wisdom that will overcome the fears and anxieties of the world (1 Peter 3:8). 

More Lord! Thank you Jesus.