REMAINING CONNECTED TO THE VINE

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing…If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." John 15:5,7

Jesus told His disciples that if they want to be fruitful, if they want to live according to His purpose for them, if they want to live victorious lives, they must stay connected to Him. Their connection to Jesus would determine their destiny. Their connection to Jesus would determine whether or not their prayers were answered.

Jesus likened their relationship to that of a living plant. He is the vine, the main source of water and nutrients, while the disciples are the branches that depend upon the vine for survival. As the branches must remain connected to the vine in order to grow and multiply, so too, must the disciples remain connected to Jesus for the same reasons. Jesus makes it very clear what will happen should they become separated from Him. Apart from Him, the vine, they will not be able to do anything. 

-- Ronda Sturgill

#5846

THE BOOKS BABIES READ

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”  (Proverbs 22:6 NIV)

I venture that the books babies read before they are enrolled in school are probably the most important books that will ever come into their lives. I am speaking of those things which children read in the lives of the people around them. The book of human conduct: there is no other quite like it. The print is large, the lessons are both clear and subtle, the illustrations command attention. Long before a child knows the alphabet, it has begun formulating profound and perhaps lifelong attitudes about God, character, love and human values. The infant may not be able to verbalize those ideas until years later... in fact, some ideas will always be a little beyond verbalization; perhaps that's why we sometimes say, "I really don't know why I feel the way I do" but the ideas are there. A baby has read them in the most persuasive of all books, the conduct of those around her. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Honey in the Lion” from a sermon called "Books That Babies Can Read"

#5845

THE BLAME GAME

“The Lord God said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.’ Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate.’”  (Genesis 3:11-13 ESV)

All blame is a waste of time. No matter how much fault you find with another, and regardless of how much you blame him, it will not change you. The only thing blame does is to keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your guilt, your unhappiness, or your frustration. You may succeed in making another feel guilty about something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it is about you that is making you unhappy.

-- Adapted from Wayne Dyer 

#5844

BREAKING OUR PRIDE

“To honor the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil ways and false words.”  (Proverbs 8:13 GNT)

Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “There is perhaps no one of the natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it. Struggle with it. Stifle it. Mortify it as much as one pleases. It is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself... Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

Unchanging God, Your power and presence change us. Break our pride and transform our lives. Help us become messengers of Your grace and truth. For Christ's glory we pray, Amen. 

#5843

GOD GIVES HUMILITY

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  (Philippians 2:5-8 ESV)

The chief mark of a Christian is humility.  But we are not saints, we confess to ourselves, and don't expect to be.  God is holy, but we are not.  Christ is humble.  We are far from it.  We admire the ideal.  But we consider reaching it unattainable.  Our conduct lags behind our creed.  We go around with a cloud of hopelessness hanging overhead.

But don't you see, as long as we think of humility as an ideal, beautiful but unattainable, that we will never even try for it?  Don't you see that even with all our theology about Christ saving us, if we flinch under every humiliation, and fail to see God's hand upon us, we will never be what we can be?  The first mark of a Christian is humility.  It is not easy to reach.  It was not easy for Jesus.  Don't think it was!  He prayed and struggled.  He was tempted like us.

"God …. gives humility," says Thomas Kelly.  "Growth in humility is a measure of our growth in the habit of the Godward-directed mind.  And he only is near to God who is exceedingly humble … There is a humility that is in God Himself.  Be ye humble as God is humble." (Thomas Kelly, “A Statement of Devotion”)  God gives humility to us. 

-- H.S. Vigeveno in “Jesus the Revolutionary”

#5842