I Am the True Vine
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Some key thoughts in this article: The fruitful branch is trimmed drastically (vines more
than trees) and pruned close to the vine… If the church would submit to such
pruning, it would completely wipe out traditionalism… The pruning process
removes distance (from Christ) and indirect connections are eliminated… Dependence
on a program competes with dependency upon Christ alone… Success is not the
same as fruit bearing… Material that the Holy Spirit uses to teach His people
is Bible material… To pray without ceasing means that we are to habitually
practice praying as Jesus commanded us to do: “When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to
your Father who is in secret” (Mat. 6:6)… His love is not humanistic and it
is not, primarily, humanitarian. It exists and functions to give glory to God…
From Gardening Know-How: When
it comes to pruning grapes, the most common mistake people make is not pruning
hard enough. Light pruning doesn’t promote adequate fruiting whereas heavy
pruning provides the greatest quality of grapes.
John 15:1-11
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” If we understand biblical principle, then it will not be
hard to see that Jesus is saying that He is exclusively the only true,
legitimate vine that exists. The best that all the vines in the world’s vineyards
can do is to portray the characteristics of this vine.
Billy Graham about disciplining children
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If you fail to
discipline your children… you are sinning against God.
Billy Graham:
“Many of our educational leaders sneer at the old-fashioned idea of God and a
moral code. Movies feature sex, sin, crime and alcohol. Teenagers see these
things portrayed alluringly on the screen and decide to go and try them.
Newspapers have played up crime and sex until they seem glamorous to our young
people.” One of the fundamental
problems, according to Rev. Graham, is the failure of parents to fight “the
Devil in the home” through discipline and, as a result, “children are allowed
to go wild.”
“Parents
must spend time with their children, set a good example for them, discipline
them, and teach them to ‘know God,’” said the pastor, who has five children and
19 grandchildren. “If
you fail to discipline your children, you are breaking the laws, commandments
and statutes of God,” said Rev. Graham. “You are guilty,not only of
injuring the moral, spiritual and physical lives of your children, but of
sinning against God. The Bible says that if you fail to discipline your
children, you actually hate them.”
Not by Brawn by J. Vernon McGee
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Then he answered
and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of Jehovah unto Zerubbabel, saying,
Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts. Zec 4:6
You could characterize the greatest
national force the world has ever seen with one word: power! Rome was the
greatest power machine the world has ever seen. The legions of Rome marched on
every frontier. They were invincible and victorious. But one day they took into
custody a Man who seemed to be very weak. Pilate said to Him, “Don’t you
realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?” The Lord Jesus
answered, “You would have not power over me if it were not given to you from
above.”
Today we have a perspective
on that. The legions of Rom have marched into oblivion. As Kipling said, “The
tumult and the shouting die, the captains and the kings depart.” They are all
gone. But the gospel of that Man who died on the cross is still being carried
by weak men to the ends of the earth… by men who are as weak as you and I. This
death was a victory.
God is not impressed by brawn
and a display of muscle. The church goes forward today like a little Samson
shorn of its locks of power. It parades up and down, boasting of its accomplishments,
and, like Samson, it does not know that the Spirit of God has departed from it.
The thing that makes this so tragic is that the church could go forward like a
little David with a simple slingshot of the Holy Spirit, to meet the enemy with
all of his stratagems, and come away with a victory!
Oh how we need the power of
the Holy Spirit! God’s work in the world is not done by brawn. It is
accomplished only by His Spirit.
Doctrine Number One: The Bible is the Word of God
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Before anyone can profit from
the riches of the Christian life, that person must obtain the firm conviction
that the Bible is the Word of God. There is no way to enjoy, learn and grow in
faith without this truth burned into his heart. In the book of Acts we read
again and again that the apostles and other evangelists went from one place to
another, preaching the Word.
We need to believe that the
Bible is the Word of God in order to form the foundation upon which we can
build our lives. We must be convinced that the Bible is the maximum authority
that decides every question that has to do with Christian living. In the first
place, we will take into account the Old Testament, because it forms the basis
for the New Testament. For this reason, no Christian can say that he understands
the New Testament, if he has not studied the Old. He cannot have a clue about
many things that Jesus and His disciples taught.
Who Should We Listen To?
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I will not try to hide the fact that one of my
favorite authors, if not my favorite, is A. W. Tozer. There are several reasons
for this. First of all, Tozer belonged to the same denomination, in which I was
raised as a boy, so I especially appreciate some of the truth that they
emphasized (just to mention two favorite verses… “Christ in you, the hope of
glory” and “not I, but Christ in me”). Secondly, Tozer lived near enough to
this generation to speak of trends that are still in the forefront in our day
and he knew where they would lead us. Above those two reasons, Tozer had a gift
of expression, when he spoke or wrote about God and His Son that warms my heart
more than any other writer. Of course, I consider the material of many more authors
to be valuable. We need the body of Christ, the saints of all ages, which
comprise the Church, whether they are alive or have already passed on to Glory.
We only see a small part of the whole spectrum of truth. Others in our day see
other things, and down through time, men of God saw gems of scriptural truth,
which can enrich us today. We need to read good books… lots of them! The people
of God have always done that.
At the same time, I find things in which I
disagree with Tozer, although they are not many and certainly not vital matters. I mention Tozer, because you will see that I have presented some of
his thoughts previously and I want to do some again. Here are some things that
Tozer had to say concerning loyalty and following man. Tozer was a pastor,
principally in two churches in his lifetime, one in Chicago and the other in
Toronto, so he is speaking on this subject from a pastoral standpoint. He
always pointed his people to Christ alone:
In Rut, Root or Revival, chapter five,
he said: “Faith in Jesus is not commitment to your church or
denomination. I believe in the local church… I believe in the divine assembly.
We ought to realize that we are, as a group of Christians, a divine assembly, a
cell in the body of Christ, alive with His life. But not for one second would I
try to create in you a faith that would lead you to commit yourself irrevocably to
a local church or to your church leaders.”
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