A Portion Of Scripture That Convicts Me Deeply Religion Essays

A Portion Of Scripture That Convicts Me Deeply Religion Essays A Portion Of Scripture That Convicts Me Deeply Religion Essay A Portion Of Scripture That Convicts Me Deeply Religion Essay Essay Topic: Deep There is a part of Bible that convicts me profoundly. It involves a great and awful duty that no true adherent of Jesus Christ can disregard. Jesus said: I am the vine, and my Father is the farmer. Every subdivision in me that beareth non fruit he taketh off ; and every subdivision that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may convey away more fruit . If a adult male abide non in me, he is cast Forth as a subdivision, and is withered ; and work forces gather them and project them into the fire, and they are burned ( John 15:2,6 ) I have read and re-read these powerful words of Christ, and I ca nt get away their convicting power. What a grave charge, along with a atrocious, baleful warning set Forth here by our Lord. The Holy Spirit has impressed upon me the importance of understanding these words of Jesus, My Father is the farmer every subdivision in me that beareth non fruit he taketh away This affair of Christians bearing fruit is non optional with God. He watches over His vine and all the subdivisions engrafted to it with great green-eyed monster and concern. He patiently waits for the subdivisions to convey forth fruit. He stands beside it with sniping knife in manus, fondly watching for the slightest grounds of corruptness, blight or disease which could impede growing. God expects fruit from every subdivision. Without fruit, it is impossible to honour and laud God or be a true adherent of Christ. Jesus said: herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit ; so shall ye be my adherents ( John 15:8 ) . Bearing fruit has everything to make with delighting God with carry throughing our mission in Christ with holding our supplications and requests answered. Jesus said, Ye have non take me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you that ye should travel and convey Forth fruit, and that your fruit should stay ; that whatsoever ye shall inquire of the Father in my name, he may give it you ( verse 16 ) . Fruit or Fire It may sound harsh and unloving to some, but the truth here is bear fruit or be cast into the fire! Bear fruit or be cut off the vine! Bear fruit or be taken off to wither and dice! The instructors of false security can seek to explicate away the pointed warnings Jesus gives us here ; but I refuse to alter a individual word of what Jesus has clearly stated. You ca nt get away our Lord s premonition, Every subdivision in me that beareth non fruit he taketh off. Some would seek to soften this austere message by proposing, Well, if they are of all time cut off the vine, they were non truly connected to it! They pretended to be in Christ. But Jesus is talking of subdivisions in me. They are connected to the vine. They are sharers of the really life-flow that is in the vine. Barren, bootless subdivisions are non long endured! They are non permitted to stay in the vine without bearing fruit. They are cut off, non by the Satan, but by the Heavenly Father. He taketh off He prunes it . Jesus saw a bare fig tree and cursed it. And when he saw a fig tree in the manner, he came to it, and found nil thereon, but leaves merely, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee hence Forth everlastingly and soon the fig tree withered off ( Matthew 21:19 ) . Jesus saw what no human eyes could see the cancerous blight beneath the foliages disease beneath the bark the distributing power of decease in it. He did non cuss the ebbing life of that tree, but the decease that was at work in it. This was meant to be much more than a symbolic message to Israel ; it is a warning to every Christian of every church age! Jesus said He did merely that which He saw the Father do and did merely His Father s will. His Father saw the fig tree was beyond pruning, beyond salvaging, because corruptness and decease had become dominant. Its subdivisions were cursed to a shriveling decease to stop up in the fire. Here once more our Lord is demoing us the earnestness of fruit bearing. Jesus came looking for fruit. So it is even now, our Lord is coming to us daily, and the inquiry is, Where is the Father s fruit? Where is the much fruit you are to bear for His glorification? When I began to see how sobering this affair of fruit bearing is I reasoned with the Holy Spirit: if bearing fruit is synonymous with true discipleship if bearing fruit brings glorification to God, and much fruit even more glory to Him if being waste, bootless brings the knife of the farmer down on me if bearing no fruit could stop up with me being taken off, cast Forth as a subdivision, go forthing me shriveled and spiritually dead so I want to cognize what this fruit is! I want to do every alteration in my life necessary to bear it! I want every hinderance removed! I want the Holy Spirit to purge out all marks of religious blight, apathy, corruptness! Motivated by Fear or Love? Am I moved by fright do these words of Jesus put a apprehension in me? My reply is that I am moved by both the apprehension of God s Word and by His overpowering love for me. If I know my bosom, I want to bear much fruit for my Heavenly Father, because He is canonized thereby, and my bosom yearns to delight Him. I want to cognize that the fruit He wants is brought Forth in me ; I want to convey joy and gladfulness to Him. I want to truly laud the Father. But I besides have in me the apprehension and fright of a sanctum God a Father who will non set up with unjudged lip service or travesty. Some think of the fright of God as nil more than a beginning of awe and admiration. It is much more than that. Isaiah had a vision of ineffable sanctity of God. The stations of the temple door moved at the sound of His olympian voice. Seraphims could non even stare on his awful glorification ; they covered their eyes with their wings. Bing in the presence of His fantastic sanctity overwhelmed Isaiah. He cried out, Woe is me, I m undone ( Isaiah 6:3-6 ) . Did Isaiah come off from that experience with merely a sense of awe? No! Much more! He had upon him from that twenty-four hours on a fright and apprehension of His righteous and holy judgements! Of work forces Isaiah said, Fear ye non their fright, nor be afraid ( Isaiah 8:13 ) . Isaiah said, Hear ye the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word ( Isaiah 66:5 ) . He besides proclaimed th ese words of the Lord, To this adult male will I look, even to him that is hapless and of a remorseful spirit, and trembleth at my word ( Isaiah 66:2 ) . At the firing shrub when God appeared to Moses, he trembled, and durst [ dared ] non look ( Acts 7:32 ) . The Hebrew word used here suggests to agitate awfully! Jacob had a dream in which a ladder was set up making to heaven and angels of God were go uping and falling. He saw the Lord above it all and heard Him arrant great promises. When he awoke, his first words were: Surely the Lord is in this topographic point I knew it non. He was overwhelmed with the fright of God and cried out, How awful is this topographic point! This is none other than the house of God this is the gate of Eden ( Genesis 28:10-17 ) . Daniel was a praying adult male. He knew God really closely, holding been shown Eden s secrets. He was a adult male who put his face to seek the Lord God by supplication, invocations, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes ( Daniel 9:3 ) . Listen to Daniel s description of God: And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and awful God ( Daniel 9:4 ) . David said: The Lord reigneth ; allow the people tremble allow them praise thy great and awful name ; for it is holy ( Psalm 99:1,3 ) . I have emphasized the apprehension and fright of God and the shaking at His Word because that is what is losing from the church in these last yearss. If we trembled at His Word if we truly feared His righteous judgements if we believed Jesus meant merely what He said we could non set this affair of bearing fruit out of head! This coevals excessively frequently perceives God as some sort of indulgent, doting gramps type whose merely intent for being is to featherbed and bless them. They see Him as one who winks at wickedness, who expects nil more than their best attempts, and who overlooks certain wickednesss and Lashkar-e-Taibas water under the bridges be water under the bridges. There is no such God! God is loving and merciful sort and tenderhearted! But He is besides holy. He visits wickedness with judgement ; and when the Word declares Him to be a farmer with a knife, sniping and cutting, we had better believe it! What is the Fruit the Branch Must Bear? The reply is in [ Philippians ] : Bing filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glorification and congratulations of God Here Paul helps explicate the transition in John God is looking for righteousness in His people! Holiness is the fruit that glorifies the Father! How different from our construct of fecundity! We have been led to believe that fruit is success, consequences, more converts, bigger churches, and ever-expanding fundss and non-ending prosperity. Actually, bearing fruit has to with what we are going, instead than merely what we are making. The Bible makes it really clear that many, many will hold great consequences successfully projecting out Satans, mending the sick, making great plants in His name. But God sees it as barrenness, fruitlessness, when wickedness and pride reign in the bosom. I an bearing fruit when there is nil impeding the flow of the life of Christ into me! That s what Jesus meant when He said, Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken unto you ( John 15:3 ) . He is stating, Because you believed my word, trembled over it, allowing it reveal every hidden secret, conveying to light every dark thing, leting the Word of God to purge you the hinderances are all gone! This is why I will non hold Television in my place. Not because acquiring rid of it is meritable, non because its absence will do me any holier but because it is a hinderance to the life flow from Christ the vine. It is a blight, a seed of malignant neoplastic disease that could convey religious decease and do me to go unfruitful. That is besides the ground I refuse to indulge in imbibing, theatre, and traveling to discos or clubs or making anything that is of the spirit of this universe. It is because all these things hinder religious growing! They bring in decease they are unsafe because they could be me the abiltiy to bear righteous fruit! Person will state, By all this abstention and all this separation, are nt you seeking to do yourself righteous? Is nt righteousness all from Christ? Are nt wholly our plants as filthy shreds? Why so overzealous about giving up so much? Why non merely trust God, set your religion in Christ s righteousness, and be free in Him? It s true As the subdivision can non bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine ; no more can ye, except ye abide in me for without me ye can make nil ( John 15:4,5 ) . But there is much more! The Truth about Abiding in Christ There are battalions of shepherds who are lying to their sheep about what it means to stay in Christ. Millions are dyeing believing they are in Christ and staying by religion. There is small talk about fruit! Consequently, many trusters are convinced that one time in the vine, ever in the vine. They believe that no affair how clotted and diseased the subdivision, the life of Christ still flows through them and that they are bearing cherished fruit to the glorification of God. That is impossible! Hear Him! If ye maintain my commandments, ye shall stay in my love ; even as I have kept my male parent s commandments, and abide in his love ( 15:10 ) . Jesus obeyed dependably every commandment of His Father! And He called that staying! He tied it to obedience! It is astonishing how Christians today think they can pick and take which commandments of Christ to obey! If they do nt wish what is commanded, they merely disregard it or explicate away their noncompliance with, I merely do nt see it that manner I do nt believe it like that. If the Spirit moves on a curate and he brings forth God s call to sanctity, separation, self-denial and the parishioners do nt wish it, they pack up their wallet, their rank card, and travel aa‚Â ¬Ashoppingaa‚Â ¬A? for a curate who will stress the positive. That is why the awful pestilence of apathy is brushing over faith today. We have been so afraid of plants so riled up about legalism that we have given obedience a bad name. The church has reached the zenith of renunciation when it calls obedience legalism. How is it possible for a subdivision in Him non to stay? Jesus said: if a adult male abides non in me, he is cast Forth as a subdivision, and is withered ; and adult male gathers them, and casts them into the fire, and they are burned ( verse 6 ) . Can it be any clearer? Biding includes remainder and duty. It is possible to be in Him, connected to the vine, and non be staying non holding a flow of life with which to bear fruit. Abiding has to make with absolute obeisance to the commandments of Christ because every subdivision has a free will it has a life force in it! The subdivision is non inactive ; it must pull out the life from the vine! If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you ( verse 7 ) . This brings out that the Word is the Father s sniping knife. How can any branch bear fruit if the Word of the Lord is ignored, unknown, neglected? We see the fruits of waterlessness jumping up all over the Lord s vinery the music of Satans, criminal conversation, fornication, imbibing, drugs because the pruning procedure has stopped with so many. The word of God is His knife a two-edged blade. The bulk of Christians today do non read, make non cognize, make non be after to read the Word of God! They have hours and hours to sit and imbibe the settlings of crud on Television but no clip and no desire to be exposed and probed by the Word. It is impossible to bear the fruit of righteousness without His Word abiding in you! Disregard of the Word is doing barrenness it is conveying a awful atrophy to God s people. The abiding truster is one who loves and frights God, who dreads His righteous judgements, who hungers for the Word and milk sicknesss at His power of strong belief. It is one who delights in holding the Word prune off all hinderances, who prays that the really life and similitude of Christ be ever-increasing in him, and who grows more and more mature in obeisance and love! The Atrocious Consequences of Bing Cut Off the Vine Every subdivision bears other smaller subdivisions, other sprouts ; and the sprouts, in bend, bear the seed of ever-expanding subdivisions. For illustration, hubbies and married womans are one subdivision, because it is written, The two shall be as 1. What happens to me spiritually affects my married woman, my four kids, their couples, my grandchildren. I am the burden-bearing subdivision, and if there are no hinderances in me, life can flux unhampered to every branchlet, every small outgrowth sprout. Life produces life! If I neglect God s Word, if I disobey the Lord in my day-to-day walk, I will go dry. I will get down to shrivel ; I will go through from the pruning phase to the cutting off phase. My religious disaffection from God can distribute decease all through my household subdivisions! Death produces decease! Religious corruptness and disease in me can distribute like malignant neoplastic disease all through the religious life of everybody connected to me. Tragically, this very thing is go oning daily all about us. A curate goes through a mid-life crisis and turns to person besides his married woman for support. He commits criminal conversation and runs off with another adult female. He destroys the regard his loving married woman had for him. Bitterness takes clasp of her and she becomes spiritually cold and apathetic to God. Two adolescents who believed pa was the godliest adult male in the universe now turn despondently to ungodly friends. The religious decease in pa has spread its evil power all through the household. The fold dismisses him and returns to allow down its religious guard. They begin to doubt the Word ; they are leery of other curates and wo nt take godly reproof now! Not merely has the curate been cut off from the flow of Christ s life from the vine he has disturbed that flow of life that one time flowed so freely to all those connected to him. He is now a curate of decease. He is bare and his life is no longer conv eying congratulations and glorification to the Father. Everywhere he turns, there is decease and decay. He may atone and be restored, but he can non repossess all those other cherished small subdivisions he destroyed. A female parent sits before her Television graven image, imbibing in hours of diabolic slop. Her kids and her hubby neer see her reading the Word of God. She is neer heard crying or praying or demoing any grounds in the place of being a servant of the Lord. She becomes so dry ; she lives in a fantasy universe. She invariably loses her pique and argues. She in secret longs to acquire out of her matrimony to acquire off from all the duties. She is drying spiritually. The farmer must project her off and give her over to idolatry. There is no fruit merely empty barrenness no Christlikeness. She is destructing her place because she is a curate of decease. She has no flow of godly life. She has so clogged every avenue of life, it is impossible for her to be fruitful. Her kids go merely like her spiritually dead! Her hubby can non pull any religious strength from her. She is shriveling on the vine and must be cast off. She may still atone and be restored, but she can non name back the sp irit of decease she spread throughout her place. She may one twenty-four hours weep over these lost psyches ; she may shout over her bad illustration of the past ; but she can non undo all the harm. Every Christian who truly loves the Lord must halt and allow this word deeply sink in! The more fruit of sanctity that is shown in us the more of Christ s comprehensiveness revealed in us the more heavenly minded we become the more of Christ s life will touch everyone with whom we are connected. I one time saw an full wood of diseased, brown, worm-infested trees. But here and at that place, in the thick of all the decease, I saw a green, healthy tree. What kept some of them green while there was shriveling all around? It was an abundant supply of life! Life overcame the decease. Every worm that attacked a foliage was repelled by the power of life. There was nil of decease in the green trees ; there was no topographic point for disease to attach itself. I want to be like that viridity, full of His life bearing fruit a channel of life to everything within my circle of ministry and influence. The Word says, that your fruit should stay This means that you may be ever-bearing! You will stay in the flow of Christ s life with no hinderances! It means that all who are with you will go on turning in Christ.