DAY THIRTEEN
If you read yesterday’s teaching, then you already know about the mysteries of the kingdom. Although, it is possible that you came away with some questions about what it means to hear from God and have His words change your life. Today’s teaching is the rest of the story. In John 15, Jesus tells another story to teach us about the kingdom. He unveils the secret of the vine. He begins the story by identifying its characters.
The Father is the Vinedresser
Jesus starts in John 15:1, saying…
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”
The Father is the vinedresser, but what is a vinedresser? What does he do in a vineyard. A vinedresser is a viticulturist, the person who takes care of the vines and the vineyard. The goal of the vinedresser is always to produce the best fruit possible.
A few years ago, I had the privilege of touring the vineyard of Stella di Campalto in Montalcino, Italy. Stella personally walked us around the vines. On our walk, I asked her, “What is the secret to making superb wine?” She was adamant, “It is all in how we care for the vines.” As the viticulturist, she knew everything about every vine. She knew how each one produced from year to year. She understood the uniqueness of the soil where a vine was planted. Most importantly, she carefully studied every vine. By looking at it, she could tell exactly where the best fruit would grow; she pruned it accordingly.
According to Karen MacNeil in The Wine Bible, “…viticulturists consider pruning to be both an art and a science, and experienced pruners often adopt a Zenlike contentment after spending several cold and rather solitary weeks in a starkly barren vineyard during the winter. What the pruner decides to leave becomes the basis for the next year’s crop. If pruned too severely, the vines’ fruitfulness and strength may be compromised, if pruned too little, the vines will push out too many shoots and leaves and produce too much fruit and become unbalanced. The overabundance of fruit will mean the crop will have a hard time ripening, and this in turn could lead to fewer shoots and stunted growth in subsequent seasons.”
As the vinedresser, the Father calls the shots. His desire for us, as children, is that we produce amazing fruit in our lives. He knows everything that has gone in our lives. He knows exactly what healing we need to experience and what character we need to develop. Based on His intimate knowledge, He guides us to themes or passages in Scripture where we can receive transformation designed by Him. As the viticulturist, He is our true spiritual director. There is no other.
So, how does the Father guide us to the fruit He wants to develop in our lives? He does it through pruning. Put aside your natural inclination to think of pruning as negative. The pruning of John 15 is entirely positive.
In John 15:2, Jesus continued…
"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit."
If you were to let a grapevine grow wild, two things would happen. First, the vine would sprout many branches that would never grow any fruit. Unfruitful greenery does nothing but suck the life out of the vine. Second, even if you pruned all the greenery, the vine would sprout so many fruit-bearing branches that all the fruit would be mediocre at best.
The vinedresser, carefully guides the pruning process to lead each branch toward the production of the most amazing fruit possible. He cuts off the unfruitful branches, then he cuts off every branch, except those that will produce the best fruit.
This type of pruning is not painful, it is freeing. When our Spiritual Director reveals His spiritual direction for us, it frees us from all other pursuits. For example, there was almost an entire year where God was developing the fruit of SHALOM (peace) in my life. I probably could have completed a study on SHALOM in just a few months, but God wanted me to become a peacemaker. He wanted the fruit of SHALOM to come to maturity in me. He wanted me to be so covered by SHALOM that I could carry it with me as an offering wherever I went.
During that time, I said no to many other pursuits on my spiritual journey. If someone recommended a book to read, I only read it if it directly tied to God’s journey for me. When I went to church, I went to hear from God, to hear what else He had to say about SHALOM and being a peacemaker. In conversations with friends and family, I was looking what would feed my God-designed spiritual journey. It was freeing to be able to let go of the excess and focus on the spiritual direction I had received from God.
When God gives us spiritual direction, it frees us from all other religious and worldly pursuits. His direction changes the way we approach our spiritual lives. Instead of going to hear a sermon at church, we go to see what God has to say about the fruit He is developing in our lives. We no longer read the Bible to learn, we read the Bible to hear from God and receive His healing and transformation.
For many of us, spiritual pursuits end up being a mile wide and an inch deep. We get involved in too many church activities, studies, and teaching times, and we never have time to process what we are learning. God wants us to go an inch wide and a mile deep. His desire is that we focus and let amazing fruit come to maturity in our lives.
So, where do we start? First, we check in with the Father. As our spiritual director, He will reveal the fruit He wants for us. It is not something He will hide from us. He wants us to receive it and know for certain it is for us. Second, we stay alert to our surroundings and the circumstances of our lives to see if there is a place God is bringing to our attention. Be especially alert when you are reading Scripture. See if something jumps off the page at you. Go to where there is life. Then, when you find God’s spiritual direction, camp out there for a period of time, until God’s work is done. Stick with what God reveals until it becomes a part of you, until the fruit of that Scripture grows to maturity in you.
Jesus is the Source of Life
As we have seen, in John 15:1, Jesus says…
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”
Jesus says that He is the vine. But what is the role of the vine in the production of amazing grapes? It is the source of life. The vine grows roots down into the soil and pulls out the water and nutrients necessary to feed the branches, so they can produce good fruit.
Plain and simple, Jesus is the source of life and there is no other. For this reason, Jesus says that He is the “true” vine. On our spiritual journeys in the kingdom, many people will offer their version of the truth about what it takes to grow spiritually. Unfortunately, many very thoughtful suggestions are counterfeit. Jesus wanted His disciples to understand that there is only one Messiah. There is only one Jesus. There is no other way to live and be fruitful in life.
We are the Branches
Jesus continues in John 15:4-5, where He says…
4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing."
The secret of the vine comes to life when we understand what Jesus spoke about the role of the branches. We are the branches, and our role is quite simple, we are to stay connected to the vine, the source of life. We are to stay in relationship with Jesus.
Jesus uses the term “abide,” which means to remain, stay, or dwell in a certain place. The idea is that in order to live the life we were meant to live as children of the king, we must stay in relationship with Jesus. This is the most important secret to kingdom living. It is so simple that it is often overlooked. The fact is that most Christians live their lives as practical atheists, a term coined by Henry Blackaby in, Experiencing God. They go to church, they own a Bible, but they do little else to stay in relationship with Christ.
Why is it so important to daily, moment by moment, stay in relationship with Jesus? Because, without a thriving relationship with Jesus, we will never produce any fruit in our own lives or in the lives of others. In fact, it is impossible for us to produce fruit in and of ourselves.
In verse 4, Jesus says…
“As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”
Jesus makes His point even more emphatic, when He says, at the end of verse 5…
“…apart from me you can do nothing.”
What can we do apart from Jesus? Absolutely nothing. That means we cannot fix ourselves. We cannot heal ourselves. We cannot silence the old lies that run through our minds. We cannot defeat the enemy. And we can do absolutely nothing for others. We cannot bring them healing. We cannot carry the message of the kingdom. We cannot speak. We can do absolutely nothing apart from a daily, moment by moment relationship with Jesus.
The good news is that Jesus states just the opposite in verse 5, where He says…
“…he who abides in me bears much fruit.”
It is important to stay in relationship with Jesus so that we can bear the best fruit possible, the kind of fruit that demonstrates to the world that we are truly followers of Jesus. As the source of life, Jesus pours life into us when we spend time with Him daily, when we dialogue with Him, when we bask in His presence.
But there is one more secret of the vine.
Jesus goes on in John 15:7…
"If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you."
We already understand the concept of abiding in Jesus as staying in relationship with Him. But Jesus adds a second condition. He says, “If…My words abide in you.”
So, what does it mean for the words of Jesus to remain in us? This is crucial to the concept of abiding and the secret of the vine. To fully understand what it means, we must understand the Greek word used here. Jesus said, literally, “…let my rhema abide in you.”
In the Greek, there are two words, logos and rhema, that are translated as “word.” “Logos” refers to the person of Jesus including all that He is and all that He taught. It is the full counsel of the Bible, everything we know to be true based on God’s revelation. “Rhema,” on the other hand, is the utterance of God. It is God’s spoken word.
Rhema can refer to God speaking to His people or it can be that moment when God takes Scripture already written and inspired by Him and He brings it to life just for us. He takes from the 66 books of the Bible and the thousands of promises and He makes the words jump off the page at us. He brings them to life. This is how the Father, our spiritual director, determines exactly where He wants us to remain. When God gives us the gift of rhema, we hold on to it and do not let it go until it produces amazing fruit in our lives, until it does the work it was meant to do.
This completely changes how we approach God’s word, the Bible. It is no longer a textbook. It is living. God takes the words on the pages of the Bible and He breathes life into them on our behalf. Knowing this, we no longer stop at asking God what it means, we ask Him what He has to say to us through His word. And then, when God reveals his rhema to us, we stay there until His rhema becomes a part of our lives. It may take weeks or months for us to reach a point of belief, for His word to take root in us, and for His word to do the full work it was intended to do in us.
When I first heard this concept, I was quite skeptical. But my mentor, Rich Case, said to me, “Just give it a try. Take one of the verses from our weekend retreat, one of the verses that might have stood out to you and start there.”
The verse that stood out to me was Psalm 37:4…
“Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart.”
I went home and began to unpack the verse. I started by trying to understand the meaning of the word “delight”. I thought it would have something to do with celebration and excitement. But on the contrary, I found out that it meant delicate morsels, tender moments, beautiful experiences. This was exactly what I had been wanting in my marriage and now God was telling me that He wanted me to experience this with Him.
With some of my skepticism behind me, I continued. I wanted to know what the word “desires” meant. When I went to look it up in the Hebrew, I found out that it was the word, MISH’ALAH. My wife is Michelle, but I call her Michy [pronounced mishee]. It was as if my wife’s name was somehow hidden in the “special word” God had given me. His promise to me what that He would give me the wife of my heart along with the desires of my heart.
As I processed my new rhema with Rich, he gave both my wife and I a challenge. He suggested that we ask God to reveal to us the desires of our hearts. At the time, we were in a difficult place and we did not we even knew what we wanted for our marriage. So, we prayed. We asked God and began to think about what an exceptional, beautiful marriage might look like.
God answered our prayer. Separately, we each wrote down the desires of our heart for our marriage. We even wrote down items that excited our hearts personally. Then we came together to journal the thirteen desires of our hearts for our marriage. We were excited to see what God would do and what we should do next.
I spoke with Rich again, asking Him what we should do next. In my mind, there were probably some assignments he would give us, some things we should do to make these things a part of our marriage.
But instead of assignments, Rich instructed me to continue my abiding in Psalm 37. His suggestion was to look at the next verse. If God had given me this passage in the Bible, as rhema, then He would continue to guide me through the passage.
The answer was as clear as day. The next verse in Psalm 37 was verse five. It says...
“Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it.”
There was nothing I was to do to make this happen. It wasn’t mine to do. My instruction from God was to continue abiding, “delight yourself in the LORD.” Then, regarding the desires of our heart, we were supposed to let God give them to us, “Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him and He will do it.”
So, for the next several months, rather than making it all happen, we met together once a month, prayed through the desires of our heart, and shared with each other anything we had seen God do to bring these things into our marriage.
It was a miracle. After about six months, God had done a little part of everything that was in our list of the desires of our heart. Every month, as we continued to abide, God would do even more. Within 18 months, God had given us every single one of the desires of our heart for our marriage. He did it!
But the story is never over. Every year God continues to pour into our relationship, more of the beauty that He designed for marriage. Every year God continues to build on these desires and take us to deeper more beautiful experiences for every desire in the list.
This is the fruit of abiding. This is what happens when God gives us rhema and we process through to belief. As we process, it takes root. Once it takes root, it begins to produce beautiful fruit. And when we see it through to the end, it transforms our lives. This is the secret of the vine, and the rest of the story regarding the mysteries of the kingdom.
WORSHIP: Take some time to worship Jesus for the beautiful, intimate relationship we can have with Him. There is no one like Him and nothing like the closeness of our relationship with Him.
PRACTICE: Spend 45 minutes reading Ezekiel 34:11-31 in a cross-reference Bible. Identify one to three of God’s promises as our Shepherd (“I will”). Let the Spirit impress upon you the one that He wants to speak to you today. Write down what this promise means to you and why the Lord might be promising this to you. Then cross reference this verse to any other promises of God in Scripture and write what this means to you and why the Lord is promising this to you. Then, again cross reference that verse and keep going.
MEDITATION: When you are done with your practice, spend another 15 minutes meditating on the verses that stood out to you.
ABIDING: Now you understand what I have been talking about in the abiding section. I will return to that tomorrow.
Thank you to Rich and Linda Case for their teaching on abiding which they shared with me 15 years ago. Much of what is written here originated from their teaching and materials at https://afjministry.com.