Broken Bread 3

Week Four: Master Gardener    Day 23: True Vine     April 18, 2016 
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Harvest image
"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of
unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground;
for it is time to seek the LORD, until He comes
and showers righteousness upon you."
(Hosea 10:12) 
Day Twenty-Three Devotions:
 
MORNING MEDITATION
 
Glean the Word: John 15:1  
   
Glimpse of Glory: "You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand." (Psalm 16:11) 
  
In all that Jesus taught His disciples, His great desire was that they (and we) would understand that His highest priority for our lives is that of a life of deepening intimacy with God.  He came into the world as "the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14a), to live as our example and die as our substitute, so that we, as believers, would become a holy sanctuary in which His Holy Spirit could dwell, and experience the joy and peace of living in continual, uninterrupted communion with the heavenly Father. This is the experience of the abiding life which Jesus spoke about when He declared, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener" (John 15:1).  In this message the Lord painted a picture of the deeper spiritual life that He came to give to those who trust Him as Savior.

As the true vine, Jesus is the original support and supplier of His people, all others are counterfeits, who, unlike the vine which supplies and produces life in the branches, drain necessary life and power which cause the limbs to become weak and fall away from the Source of their life.  The relationship of the true vine to its branches is one of perfect love and communion. The Father, as the heavenly Gardener, keeps a watchful eye over His vineyard, which is His Church, and gives all good things to it so that it will prosper as He has purposed.  "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.  To Him be the glory forever! Amen" (Romans 11:36).  Jesus demonstrated His absolute dependence upon the Father every day that He walked on this earth.  From His supreme example as the true vine, we, as the branches, must learn that we have been called to Him for one purpose: to leave ourselves entirely in God's hands.  As we journey through this week let us take joy in the reminder that in Christ Jesus we have all that we need.  This morning, may we take time to confess our complete and utter helplessness apart from Christ, and repent of our failure to leave every part of our lives in His capable and powerful hands. May we come to Him as He calls, and abide in Him, so we can find rest for our weary souls.    
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AFTERNOON DEVOTION
 
Glean the Word: Isaiah 5:1-7        
 
Gift of Grace: "Sing about a fruitful vineyard: I, the LORD, watch over it; I water it continually.  I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it." (Isaiah 27:2-3)  
 
The vine spoken of in the Old Testament is the nation of Israel.  They are God's chosen people, and as such, the Lord provided them everything they needed to succeed.  He provided Israel with great things so that they would be protected and prosper.  The Lord planted Israel "on a fertile hillside;" a land flowing with milk and honey.  He fenced them in and cleared away all the stones of reproach from the nations, and placed them under the strong tower of His protection.  He built them a winepress through which the wine would never cease to flow.  The Lord had been good to His people Israel and planted them to be a fruitful vineyard.  Instead, they defiled His land with their sin, and rather than produce the fruit that He expected, they produced nothing but wild grapes.  "Then He looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit" (v. 2b).

Rather than faithfully tending to the vineyard of the Lord, His people Israel had rejected the goodness and blessings of God and aroused His anger.  The winepress of His blessing would now be used for the treading of the fury of His wrath (Revelation 19:15b).  The Lord had looked for a harvest of justice and righteousness, but instead the people disobeyed God's holy law and yielded a crop of wickedness and oppression, so now He would lay His sickle to the field and they would suffer His hand of judgment.  "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" (Isaiah 5:5-6).  When the Lord plants His people He intends for them to bring forth the fruit He has purposed.  A good tree will produce good fruit, but a bad tree will only produce bad fruit (Matthew 7:17).  We are known by the fruit that we produce (v.20).  Our fruit reveals our nature, and our nature is to be the same as Christ. This afternoon let us take some time to take stock of where the Lord has planted us and what He has planted within us, and then look for the evidences of the kind of fruit that is being produced in our life.  Let us repent of anything that is coming out of our lives that doesn't bring glory to the Vine in which we are meant to abide.  May the Lord find reason to bless us more with Himself so we can be a blessing to others.
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EVENING PRAYER
 
Glean the Word: Matthew 11:28-29

Fruit of Repentance:
"Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near." (Philippians 4:4-5)  
 
Evening prayer focus:  Pray that we would experience the gentle and tender touch of God in our lives. (click on the image below for our evening prayer).

"The LORD will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." (Isaiah 58:11)


This evening, draw close to the fire and experience the warmth, love and light of Christ as we come boldly before the Throne of Grace and join our hearts together in prayer:

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HARVEST The Kingdom of God - 
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