The True Vine (4)

The branch has but one object for which it exists, one purpose to which it is entirely given up. That is, to bear the fruit the vine wishes to bring forth. And so the believer has but one reason for his being a branch—but one reason for his existence on earth —that the heavenly Vine may through him bring forth His fruit. Happy the soul that knows this, that has consented to it, and that says, I have been redeemed and I live for one thing—as exclusively as the natural branch exists only to bring forth fruit, I too; as exclusively as the heavenly Vine exists to bring forth fruit, I too. As I have been planted by God into Christ, I have wholly given myself to bear the fruit the Vine desires to bring forth. (Day 3, The True Vine, by Andrew Murray - public domain).

I am struck by the Christ-centeredness of Murray’s writing; it is in stark contrast to our contemporary norm - which is preaching and teaching centered on us. Murray uses terms of absolute surrender and dedication to Jesus Christ; we don’t typically hear this language today.

There is nothing more “practical” than learning to abide in the Vine, nothing that will have greater impact on our lives, nothing that will make a more significant difference in the lives of those around us. Perhaps we have sunk into the abyss of moralism and self-improvement and motivational living and living to be successful to the point where Murray’s language is difficult to relate to. But are we not called to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ? Are we not called to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him? (Mark 8:34 - 38). Are we not called to live wholly and completely for Jesus Christ?

As Paul reminds us, we are no longer our own, we have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:19 - 20). We are to truly live for one thing, one Person, Jesus Christ - and in Him we will find other relationships, other callings, other facets of life - but our life and our purpose are to be Jesus first and last; all of life must stand in relation to Jesus Christ.

Yes, this is radical. Sadly what was once radical in the eyes of the world has now become radical in the eyes of much of the professing church...at least in the West. We have so lowered the Gospel bar, we have so sought accomodation with the world, that in becoming “seeker sensitive” we have lost our sensitivity to the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. Would the NT and Early Church recognize our preaching and practices as the Gospel?

One of the prices we pay for our current situation is that we rob believers of the joy of knowing intimacy with Jesus Christ, of the joy of abiding in the Vine as a way of life. But O the joy of living for Jesus, in Jesus, unto Jesus - for the joy of breathing Jesus as our life, for following Jesus as our way, as knowing Jesus as our truth. When Jesus is our truth then only that which is grounded in Him is true and we need not rationalize other teachings, other ways of living, we need not accommodate ourselves to anything other than the truth of Jesus.

When this life on earth is over we will only have Jesus - why not only have Jesus now? When we only have Jesus we have others, when we only have Jesus we have eternal purpose, when we only have Jesus we experience the restoration of the image of God in our lives.

Why not only have Jesus now?

The True Vine (3)

THE HUSBANDMAN
And My Father is the Husbandman—John 15.1

“A vine must have a husbandman to plant and watch over it, to receive and rejoice in its fruit. Jesus says: “My Father is the husbandman.” He was “the vine of God’s planting.” All He was and did, He owed to the Father; in all He only sought the Father’s will and glory. He had become man to show us what a creature ought to be to its Creator. He took our place, and the spirit of His life before the Father was ever what He seeks to make ours: “Of him, and through him, and to him are all things.” He became the true Vine, that we might be true branches. Both in regard to Christ and ourselves the words teach us the two lessons of absolute dependence and perfect confidence.

My Father is the Husbandman.—Christ ever lived in the spirit of what He once said: “The Son can do nothing of himself.” As dependent as a vine is on a husbandman for the place where it is to grow, for its fencing in and watering and pruning. Christ felt Himself entirely dependent on the Father every day for the wisdom and the strength to do the Father’s will. As He said in the previous chapter (14:10): “The words that I say unto you, I speak not from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me doeth his works.” This absolute dependence had as its blessed counterpart the most blessed confidence that He had nothing to fear: the Father could not disappoint Him. With such a Husbandman as His Father, He could enter death and the grave. He could trust God to raise Him up. All that Christ is and has, He has, not in Himself, but from the Father.” Andrew Murray - The True Vine, Day 2

Murray goes on the discuss the second lesson of absolute dependence, which is that we are to live as Christ lived, as He drew His life from the Father we are to draw our lives from Him, as He did “nothing of Himself” so we are to do nothing of ourselves. We are not to go to God for the things that we cannot do on our own - we are to go to God for everything, we are to live in Christ in everything, As the branch is to the vine, so are we to Christ. The branch cannot survive if separated from the vine, we cannot survive if we are separated from Jesus Christ, the True Vine.

We are not to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5), not just when we encounter things that are beyond our understanding, but in all phases and aspects of life we are to trust in God and seek His wisdom and knowledge. When someone says, “God expects us to do what we can do and only go to Him when we need Him,” that person lacks a basic understanding of the life of the Christian, for the Life of a Christian is Jesus Christ - He has no desire that we should live apart from Him or do anything apart from Him. We are not to say to God, “I’ve got this but I need your help with that,” we are to abide in Him every moment and seek to see as He sees, act as He acts, think as He thinks (who can understand this? See 1 Corinthians Chapter 2), live as He lives.

When we think that we can act by ourselves and understand by ourselves we fail to see the devastating effects of sin in our lives, the damage that was done to us all when Adam and Eve fell from their relationship with God. We all live with impaired understanding, and with impaired capacity to understand and clearly see what is around us. Even though the mind of Christ is being nurtured and matured (we hope!) in us as individuals and as a people, this is a work in progress, and as Paul writes, “Now we see through a glass darkly…” Our vision, our understanding, our knowledge, is impaired - we dare not go it alone - we need Christ and we need each other.

We can trust our kind heavenly Father to care for us in Jesus Christ. We can trust the Trinity to teach us to live by the life of the Vine. We can rest in the care and protection and nurture of our Father. Our union with Jesus Christ is a reality, are we learning to live in that reality?

A Way of Life - God’s Word

With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes. (Psalm 119:10 - 12).

In Luke 24 we read that when Jesus was walking with two disciples on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus that “beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

Later in that chapter, when Jesus is with His disciples in Jerusalem, He also taught them about how He, the Messiah, is portrayed in the Scriptures.

What is the image in our minds when we read about Jesus teaching from the Scriptures? Is it an image of Jesus and the disciples reading a book? A scroll? Is it the equivalent of what we do as we gather as the church?

A Torah, just the first five books of what we call the Old Testament, likely weighed around 25 pounds and stretched many many feet - imagine what all of the Old Testament scrolls would have been like. Also, consider that they were not mass produced. People did not walk around with Old Testaments the way we can walk around with Bibles.

The disciples must have known the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings well enough to converse in them and about them, and be taught from them - without having the actual scrolls to refer to during their Bible studies. This would have also been true for any other formats in which the Scriptures were produced - you just didn’t walk into a bookstore and purchase the Scriptures.

Which is why I’m reminded of the above passage from Psalm 119 - God’s people are to be a people who hide and treasure the Word of God in their hearts.

And so Paul writes in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

We are to be a people living in God’s Word, with God’s Word living in us. We ought to speak it to one another, sing it to one another, live it with one another.

If our Bibles were taken away tomorrow, would we know the Word of God as the first-century disciples knew the Word of God?

God’s Word should be our language, it should mold our thought patterns, it should shape our desires, it should be our treasure.

God’s Word in Christ should be our way of life in the Way of life.

How are we doing?