When God Plants a Vineyard

Friday, October 27, 2023

I will lead blind Israel down a new path, guiding them along an unfamiliar way.  I will brighten the darkness before them and smooth out the road ahead of them.  Yes, I will indeed do these things; I will not forsake them.  Isaiah 42:16

In 1981 Elizabeth and I stood in a chapel service at seminary, along with 1,200 other students and faculty.  The preacher had extended a call to follow Christ in mission without reserve – no matter where it was God wanted us to go, and despite whatever conditions we would encounter.  Even the song we sang was Wherever He Leads, I’ll Go.  We responded to that call, promising to do just that!

Now, it’s great to have a mountaintop experience when you’re headed for the valley; it helps you remember and hold-onto what (and Who) your focus should be.  At that time, our vision of serving Christ as a pastoral family was kind of a Norman Rockwell painting – a snapshot, frozen in time, with pastor, wife and three kids.  Thirty years later we were supposed to still be in the same location, having developed loving relationships with the same people in the same town.  Those plans were  MY plans!  In our naivety, however, we never imagined that the plans and pathway of ministry could change so dramatically and so often!

Fast forward forty-two years, eleven churches, nine grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren….Elizabeth and I are just a few months into full retirement, having completed another first (and only) year with a new church family.  For the last four decades we’ve lived finding out how life turns on a dime!  There have been moments when we felt like the tree in the picture…uprooted, laid-down to rot.  But in those times, as we waited for God to make sense for us out of challenging and changing circumstances, new growth was always the result!

The Lord has led us into different (and unexpected) places, but His Word has never varied, His promises always faithfully-true, and we have been blessed more than if our plans had been followed to the letter.  Truth be told, I’m glad God used His plans instead of mine.

I planned to continue writing this devotional in retirement until God offered a new path on which to grow and serve.  I believe that time is here, and it is time for that new path.  So, to be obedient to our original promise to follow wherever He leads, for us future ministry will be focused in two ways:

1.    Helping in the local church where Elizabeth and I worship

2.    Taking the lessons I’ve learned (and sometimes just survived as they unfolded)…and forming them into some pages that will (hopefully) be an encouragement for pastors who are just starting-out, or looking to refocus for the next season. 

In Isaiah’s words, I feel like blind Israel with God taking me by the hand to show me a new pathway.  But that is the exciting nature of being a follower of Jesus Christ in a changing universe.  Like the tree in the picture, it looks like it is over, done…totally-finished.  But God specializes in bringing new life where death thought it was going to be in charge.  When God plants a vineyard there’s going to be fruit!

For You Today 

If you’re new to Rocky Road, or if you’ve been there since May 7, 2013, when it started, thank you for your interest, prayers, and encouragement to me along the way.  May God bless you to be a fruitful blessing to others is our prayer.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Today’s title Image from a friend’s Facebook page (original source unknown)

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

A Life with Focus

 

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life.  We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.  And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises.  These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.  In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises.  Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.  The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.  So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen.  Do these things, and you will never fall away.  Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

2 Peter 1:3-11

I watched a TV show recently where one of the main characters, a lawyer, gets a middle-age wakeup call.  As an opportunity of a lifetime to advance her career presents herself, she hires a campaign strategist to test the waters for a run at public office.  Eventually the idea is scrapped because the strategist discovers the “likability factor” just isn’t there.  To be “electable” these days, the public wants more than just competence; a candidate must have personality.  The strategist probes deeper, and forces the lawyer to face what her life is really like.  She has almost no friends, does not travel, go to events, or “have a life” outside of her immediate family.  As for “public appeal” she is just part of the landscape.

With Peter, the likability factor wasn’t even an afterthought.  For the outspoken Apostle, the more important focus in life is godliness.  He informs his flock that God has placed in their toolboxes everything needed to turn their lives in a godly direction, to find the pathway to a life of moral excellence.  This aspiration to focus on building a life that is focused on pleasing God (rather than the acclaim of personal glory), is fueled by God’s own promises. 

Peter lays-out a road map that will take you to the Promised Land of godliness, the growing of our faith which produces mature, fruitful disciples of Christ.  Notice the progression from moral excellence to the application of love:

Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

Like the other apostles Peter was once concerned with seeing Jesus have an earthly kingdom.  Somewhere in the travels and trials, Peter finally got what Jesus said about a kingdom that is far greater than any earthly public office or acclaim.  He got a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.

For You Today

So, what is the focus of your life?  And what kingdom and King holds your heart? 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

For other posts on this text see the SERIES  “Conversations with Peter”  Episode # ONE  TWO  THREE  FOUR   FIVE  SIX  SEVEN   EIGHT   

 

Friday, April 23, 2021

While Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees.  These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead.  They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail until morning.  But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of men who believed now totaled about 5,000.  Acts 4:1-4

The experience of the early church included growing like a supernova, an exploding star.  Pentecost Day saw 3,000 souls baptized and added to the church roll.[1]  This short time later the number was up to 5,000 men.  If you add the men’s households to that count, the first church was a megaforce of probably 20,000. 

Of course, with any substantial explosion, (think nuclear bombs) there is always great heat, light, and percussive fallout.  For Peter and John healing a paraplegic on the Temple steps was like igniting the fuse.  It set off two explosions; the church grew like an atomic blast epicenter, and the established religious leaders retaliated by lighting a backfire of persecution.  We read in the Scriptures and annals of church historians how that season of explosive growth and rejection by the leaders of the Jewish hierarchy touched-off the Roman Empire’s obsessive persecution of the church. 

An unintended consequence accompanied that attempt to stamp-out the followers of Jesus – their persecution was like pouring water on a grease fire; believers fled Jerusalem and travelled all over the known world, eventually spreading to the very center of persecution, Rome.  Paul was sitting in a Roman prison, chained to the kind of Roman soldiers that put Jesus on the cross.         Paul used those days and nights to witness to, and win many of Caesar’s guard to faith in Christ. ^{(See Philippians 4:22)}  How ironic, that the very government obsessed with destroying Christianity became the place that embraced it. 

In the days of Peter, John, James, Paul, and others in the roll call of the faithful, religious freedom was dependent on the whim of powerful rulers.  In most of the civilized world today religious freedom is taken for granted.  Most prayers you hear (particularly around July 4^th) thank God for that freedom.  While I also offer thanks for that, I cannot shake the uneasiness of knowing that the church, birthed with the blood of Christ, and matured in revival fires started by persecution, has lost the will to persevere.  Institutionalized by our love of ceremony and routines of ease, we have managed to quench the Spirit’s call to passionately labor unceasingly, giving our lives (if called-upon), to win souls to the Kingdom.  Hard times and growing churches have always been garden mates.  Hard times are like a pottery kiln to the church’s need for fire-finishing.  We go through fire to show the majesty of Christ, and His mastery of eternity.  It is the hard time of winter ice that produces the bloom of spring and harvest of summer.

As ironic as Paul leading the early church while sitting in a Roman dungeon, imprisoned by a pagan emperor, and winning souls, even of Caesar’s houshold, is the church of today, languishing in the Bohemian luxury of religious freedom, tax exemptions, sewing circles, and yearly antique car shows with auctions.  The only “hard times” of the church are generally the internal strife we create ourselves, over whether to have red or blue carpet in the santuary.  In the days following the persecutions of Nero and Domitian, the believers (not the apostles) scattered everywhere telling people how to be saved.  Today we’re too sophisticated to do that; we’d rather not offend people.  Funny, isn’t it?  We don’t want to offend, so we don’t proclaim Jesus.  How is that even possible, to make the leap from what gave power to the early church, to what passes for being Christ’s disciple today?  We manage to escape the harsh glance of people who consider proclaiming Christ foolish and offensive, so we don’t go through hard times.  But what we suffer in doing that is losing the very power of God.

For You Today

Let’s let one who understood hard times and Kingdom power have the last word:

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction!     But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God.  1 Corinthians 1:18

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

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[1] See Acts 2

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Peter Pan Was NOT a Christian

 

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Psalm 131:1-3

Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty.  I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp.  Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.  Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.  O Israel, put your hope in the Lord—now and always.

The longer title of the story we usually shorten to Peter Pan includes:  The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up.[1]  If Peter were to walk into the room right now he would be the most teenage-looking 116 year-old you’ve ever seen; the story was written as a play in 1904.  I first saw it on TV in the 1950’s and, was so impressed, I wrote a letter to Walt Disney the next day, asking if he had any advice for me about becoming a cartoonist.  His studio sent me a very encouraging letter.

But what does any of that have to do with Psalm 131?  Well, everything, really.  In Disney’s animated movie production, Peter sings the song:  I won’t grow up!

I won't grow up, I don't want to go to school.
Just to learn to be a parrot,
And recite a silly rule.
If growing up means
It would be beneath my dignity to climb a tree,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up  Not me!
I won't grow up,

I don't want to wear a tie.
Or a serious expression
In the middle of July.
And if it means I must prepare
To shoulder burdens with a worried air,
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me, Not I, Not me! So there!
Never gonna be a man, I won't!
Like to see somebody try And make me.  Anyone who wants to try
And make me turn into a man,
Catch me if you can.

I won't grow up.
I will never even try
I will do what Peter tells me
And I'll never ask him why

We won't grow up!
We will never grow a day
And if someone tries to make it
We will simply run away
I won't grow up!
No, I promise that I won't
I will stay a boy forever
And be banished if I don't!
And Never Land will always be
The home of youth and joy
And liberty
I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up
Not me!
I won’t!
No sir!
Not me!

Well, where do we start?  We don’t have to speak to the obvious flaw of wanting to remain a child, removed even from acknowledging that responsibilities do exist, especially if it means we might share in that burden.  The point is Scripture[2] not only calls us to leave our childish immaturity, but shows us how we can enter the process of doing what Peter Pan detested…growing up.

The Psalmist shows us Maturity-101, first page, first paragraph, lay down pride, hush all the noise…put aside your supposed deep thoughts, and trust in the LORD! 

Scripture declares that the very beginning of wisdom is to fear (reverence) God[3].

Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true wisdom.  All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom.  Praise him forever!  Psalm 111:10

In the children’s story, Peter Pan turned his back on this; too many have followed him into Never Never Land.

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, help us today to become wise, putting down our pride, so we can begin to trust and lean on You.  Grow us strong, LORD…we are needed by others, and there is no real strength without Christian maturity.

For You Today

C. S. Lewis wrote that he didn’t think God was necessarily concerned with us being happy in our circumstances, but rather wanted us to grow up and learn to love.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Christian Maturity see Life Off Track and The Confident Hope of All Saints

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[1] Written by J. M. Barrie

[2] See 9 references in the New Testament of maturity or being encouraged to grow up

[3]

God's Math

[1] 

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church:  the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.  Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.  This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.  Then we will no longer be immature like children.  We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching.  We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.  Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.  He makes the whole body fit together perfectly.  As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.  Ephesians 4:11-16

The old saying is so simple and so true: 

Give a man a fish and you have fed him today.

Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.

Something of a corollary to that maxim is related to the life span and health of churches:

If a pastor grows a church it will die when the pastor leaves.

If a church learns to be healthy it will grow and live.

Pastors do have a responsibility to help churches learn how to be healthy.  But it’s something like your doctor who has responsibility to contribute to your health; the doctor must be faithful, but the patient must cooperate. That is how God designed the church, His vineyard; we stay healthy and grow, or die on the vine!

Growing healthy in the ways of God is not complicated; obedience and commitment are the primary ingredients.  The facts of possibility for growth of an exponential kind, fast, healthy, and breathtaking are all around us.

Consider E. coli bacteria.  The numbers are staggering.  If a single E. coli cell can get enough food, it can reproduce itself every 20 minutes.  In a single day that means 72 cycles of doubling.  1 cell becomes 2 in 20 minutes; 2 cells then become 4 in another 20 minutes, and so-on.  Repeated 72 times in 24 hours (2^x72 power[2]) the result is 2.3 trillion-million cells.  If E. coli was building people that would be enough material for 76 trillion people (roughly 1,000 times the total of earth’s current population) …in just 24 hours…starting with just one lowly cell.

Now, if God can do that with a deadly virus, just think what He could do with the life-giving virus of the Gospel…IF God’s people were sharing it, dividing it, letting the evidence of things not seen[3] do its saving work!

For You Today

Paul showed us God’s kind of math the church needs to change our culture.  Apostles, Prophets, Pastors and teachers all exercise their spiritual gifts, and God’s people grow, mature, and produce kingdom fruit:  gentleness, meekness, love, joy, peace, longsuffering; the fruit of the Spirit. 

If the enemy can grow a miserable crop like E. coli, God’s farmhands have the power to overcome whatever ails this old planet!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

[2] See the chart of The Power of 2

[3] Hebrews 11:1

Against the Tide

[i]

Friday, February 22, 2019

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.  For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions.  These are not from the Father, but are from this world.  And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave.  But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.    1 John 2:15-17^(NLT)

It’s amazing how often things just seem to fall in place.  The first thing I do in the morning (after letting the dogs out to prevent a tragedy) is post the day’s devotion, on social media.  I had already begun considering what to write about on this text, and the first item in my Facebook news feed was an article posted by my next-door neighbor, Matt, who is a police sergeant, as well as worship music leader at his church.  The article quoted today’s verses and ended this way:

We must not dilute our message, ignore Bible principles, employ worship music that is dissonant, harsh, sensual and suggestive, or seek to make the church appealing to the appetites of ungodly people, even to reach them. The true gospel will never be attractive to the unsaved in general, nor will it ever make them feel comfortable. Paul declared, “The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness….” (1 Corinthians 1:18)[ii]

This is so appropriate for how today’s church attempts to hold the Gospel in worldly hands.  It reminds me of gift-wrapping a Jared’s ring in a garbage bag; the Gospel is too precious to be treated that lightly.  And yet, too many pastors and church leadership buy-into the trap of trying to present the Gospel in inoffensive, bland ways, when Scripture clearly states just the opposite.

The Gospel represents following Christ as swimming against the tide, not cruising down the river the way it wants to take you.  Discipleship is not about ease and getting what you want (as you’re liable to hear when you tune into the Texas smile hour on Sunday mornings).

Have you ever heard this phrase coming out of a parent’s mouth:  I want my kids to have it better than I did?  You may have said that yourself; I did!  But that’s because difficulty is just that…difficult, hard, adversity, struggle.  Any parent in his right mind knows it’s hard to watch your kid suffer.  But, if history is a teacher in any way, we must pay attention to the reality that the struggles of life are the best teachers.  That’s because in adversity we are strengthened.  Cut down a tree

[iii] and look closely at the rings; each one represents a year of growth.  They’re not all the same because the weather conditions, sun, rain, storms, soil, and diseases are so variable.  The hardest woods, used for the best construction and fine furniture, have faced more difficult circumstances than those growing under the best conditions.  Pain in a human life, as C.S. Lewis put it, is God’s megaphone, speaking in the loudest way, the most vitally-important life-changing words to our hearts.  Storms aren’t easy or welcome, but (again with C.S. Lewis), my God how we learn!

John, the beloved disciple, Apostle, and perhaps the closest to Jesus during His earthly ministry, said to be careful about the things that appeal to physical pleasure and pride in possessions or accomplishments; these things are not gifts from the Father in heaven…they’re temptations from the ruler of Hell.

For You Today

It’s hard to do that…push away from the physically-appealing, especially when every corner of this world’s system punches all the right buttons to make the good life of affluence, ease, and coolness seem like the brass ring to be grabbed! 

But this begs the question:  Whom you want to please?  Pleasing self with physical pleasure, possessions, and accomplishments will seem just great…for a while; but the end picture isn’t pretty.  Pleasing God by serving Christ in a surrender of self is what leads to eternity of joy, peace, and fulfillment.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[i] Title Image:  via Pixabay.com

[ii] Paul Alexander, Why We Don’t Have Contemporary Music In our Church

[iii] Tree image via Pixabay.com