Yesterday, my wife and I had an interesting conversation

A free-wheeling forum for discussion of Christian issues.

Moderators: Pastor Gary, The J2 Mod Squad

User avatar
dolfan
Established Member
Posts: 8016
Joined: March 17th, 2004, 1:25 pm
Location: USA,Alabama
Contact:

Yesterday, my wife and I had an interesting conversation

Postby dolfan » February 24th, 2011, 4:53 am

My wife and I got downright giddy yesterday about something. It is laughable --- and by that I mean funny! --- how that God speaks to us separately and when we talk to each other about Him and what we're reading, praying, thinking, and hearing from Him about overlaps so much. Often it is the exact same thing.

The theme of abiding in the vine has been in bold print to my eyes lately, speaking to my heart and frequently in front of me. In the passage where Jesus tells the disciples to abide in Him, He also says that whoever bears fruit the Father purges and more fruit is produced. Purging, pruning, all of that entails much unpleasantness. There's no whitewashing it: to follow Christ is to lose your very own life and gaining another very different one in Him. The imagination cannot manufacture enough scenarios of the most devastating losses to cover all possibilities, but it doesn't take but a moment to imagine the ones that lie at the top of our fears. Could God, would God, really take my family? My freedom? My home? My work? Yes. He can and He may. He does it everyday. And His followers around the world who know loss at His hands can testify to His grace and goodness in the middle of loss.

Back to that in a second.

There is this truth that to follow Christ is to give completely. The teaching is just all over the gospels, the epistles.

The idea that at any moment, any second, I stand to lose everything not to only evil or "tragedy" but by God's providence and purpose?! And, this is a God who loves me so much He'd give His Son for me?! This is a God whom, as Jesus described, knows my needs, provides for me, and freely gives me all things?! What is He trying to do to me??!!!

Well, back to abiding in the vine and my wife. I was thinking about all this yesterday after days and days of reading, prayer, thinking, etc. on these things. I heard Joni Earickson Tada on the radio talking about grafting. Do you know how it feels to get brought to your knees -- figuratively -- when a quadraplegic describes the pain of being grafted into the vine?

Here's a link, and I encourage you to read and/or listen for yourself.

It prompted me to think, "You know, we're watching and we're waiting on the Lord. But, we really haven't been called upon to lose, here. We're still relatively steady and unrocked on the surface. I'm pretty sure, although not certain, that this theme continues to be presented because there is an application in the offing. I have some ideas, but don't know what it could mean. And, I'm not ready to try and run ahead of the Lord and beat Him to the point, either. God's work may take any form or come in any way. My tendency is to zig when I should zag, so I'm usually better off to hold still.

So, I plugged in a little Tweet yesterday about that grafting and abiding, how that grafting means wounding. My wife called me after it appeared on her phone.

"You've just turned into a Twitter maniac," says my Facebooking wife. :lol:
I laughed. Then she said, "Well, that's exactly what I've been reading." She went onto tell me about an illustration she'd heard about bearing fruit, abiding in the vine and it just was like a laser to my heart, a punctuation from the Lord Himself. A period after a holy "Yes". We just laughed together for a minute.

Some things seem evident to us. Wait. Watch. Seek. Do. Now, that's the part that gets us. The "do". Because, we're not exactly sure, only the Bible does pretty clearly tell us. Give to the poor. Take care of the neediest, especially in the household of God. Don't seek to be wealthy. Seek to give, give, give, but do it. I really wish we had more to give, but in our own sort of not being wealthy people, where can we pare down and give away money, time? Seems we have too little of both as it is. But, that's not true, either. Everyone has the same amount of time. We haven't surrendered ourselves to God so that He is actually the Master of it. And, that is a pretty big deal. Same for money; although not everyone has the same amount, it is God's stated desire that everyone have sufficient provision -- especially in the body of Christ. So, there's plenty to "do".

I don't have any earthly idea what to expect in terms of God's pruning and producing in us, or more exactly HOW it is He'll do that. What I do know is that a faithful God is faithful to Himself and to us. He is not slack in His promises to us. And, one promise is straight out of Jesus' mouth -- whom God loves, he purges; whoever abides in Jesus bears much fruit.

Pray that we obey Him to the fullest regardless. That's what we want. That's what we prayed as we hung up the phone.
Human government bears the same relation to hell as the church bears to heaven. (David Lipscomb, On Civil Government, 72).

Return to “Jude 2 General Discussion Forum”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 32 guests

cron

Login  •  Register