Surrender to Joy

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Wednesday, January 23, 2019

One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees.  Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”  Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom?  Of course not.  But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”  Then Jesus gave them this illustration:  “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment.  For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.  “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.  For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins.  New wine must be stored in new wineskins.  But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”  Luke 5:33-38(NLT)

Cedo and Raymond lived next door to us in 1955.  They had a grape arbor off the back porch.  It had wonderful grapes, big, and juicy.  When we boys crawled under the vines down at the farthest place from the house, his Momma couldn't see us...or so we thought.  That woman swung a mean wooden spoon.  We enjoyed the new wine, but if we got caught in the grapes, she also did skinning!

Wine, in modern Western culture, is associated with substance abuse, excess.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, I won't be as those who spend the days complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine that gives it. 

Wine has always been considered part of the joy of life.  Jesus turned ordinary water into wine to save a wedding reception.  Jesus gave wine as part of the symbolic remembrance of His supreme gift of the Cross.  Wine is also pictured in the Gospel accounts as part of God's sacred wedding reception for the Bride of Christ.  Wine plays an important role in our understanding of the Spirit-filled life.  Wine is associated with joy.  Everyone wants joy; everyone wants to be happy.

In this parable Jesus is attempting to show the religious leaders (who were upset with His methods) that their old, dead religion just couldn't handle the blessing God wanted to give them.  The wineskin stands for the way we receive God and hold Him (after all, we cannot see Him).  Our worship of God begins in the heart, the center of the wineskin of our faith.  Jesus' Gospel of love and forgiveness is the new wine. 

How do we become new wineskins?  How do we prepare to receive the Savior?  It is a matter of being made new in Christ.  People have always tried to reach up to God with their religion (be nicer, more generous, don't smoke, drink, cuss, chew, or associate with them that do).  Jesus says that kind of approach will just find the new wine of joy spilled all over the carpet.  God is not held in what we do for Him; He is received by a heart that is willing to make a complete surrender to Him.

You can become a new, expandable wineskin, ready for the new wine by completely offering yourself to Jesus.  Paul said it this way:

…you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.  Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.  Colossians 3:9b-10(NLT)

And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.  Romans 8:10(NLT)

We call him Augustine; history knows him as Saint Augustine.  But if you read his story before his conversion it was anything but what we’d describe as a saint.  Augustine’s life was filled with lust for women and wine…as much as he could squeeze into every 24 hours.  It was degradation piled on top of debauchery. 

Soon after being converted, Augustine was walking down a street in Milan.  There he saw a prostitute he'd known. walking his way.  They passed, and she recognized him.  She called, Augustine!  But he did not answer.  She called again, Augustine, it is I.  Knowing the temptation before him, Augustine simply replied, Yes, I know, but it is no longer I.  That, my friends, is buying new wine -- putting the old wineskin of self out in the trash.  It is giving up on the idea that you can offer God anything at all.  It is simply giving up to Him, total surrender, white flag, unconditional.

For You Today

If you want to give God anything at all worthwhile…give Him YOU.  The joy will be worth it all!

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

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[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com

Grounding Prayer

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Thursday, May 10, 2018

Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God’s people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you.  I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.  I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance.  I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him.  This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms.  Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come.  God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.  And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.  Ephesians 1:15-23^(NLT)

Paul constantly prayed for the believers at Ephesus that their minds would embrace wisdom from God’s Holy Spirit, and that it would continually expand their strength to mature them as individual believers and as a church.

My take on an old saying:  Give a man a fish, you have fed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you have equipped him to eat for a lifetime. 

Of course it all depends on whether or not a man likes fish!  In Paul’s case, he had heard the Ephesian believers loved Christ with a strong faith, and that drove Paul to his knees constantly on behalf of this church, that their wisdom and service would grow stronger.

This is the kind of grounding prayer that is needed in the life of any believer.  It is one thing to go forward at a crusade while the choir is singing Just As I Am; it is an entirely different (and needful) thing to grow up into Christ as a disciple who serves Him well. 

To be well-grounded means your root goes deep into the vine.  Jesus told his disciples this plainly:

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.  Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.  John 15:1-4^(NLT)

This importance of understanding this analogy cannot be stressed too far – we NEED to be grounded in Christ as much as we need our next breath of air.

The older I get, the more my prayer life turns to grounding for you.  I pray constantly that those believers I know, both mature, serving Christians, as well as those newborn in the faith, will daily connect-with, and remain-in the vine.  I pray that you will become healthier in your connection to Jesus, stronger and wiser, following the leading of His Spirit, producing much fruit for the Kingdom.

This vine connection embraces that same power that raised Jesus from the dead.  And, being that close to the throne of God produces true joy!

For You Today

At the start of this day, and every day, it is vitally-important to check your power connection.  Are you going to abide in THE VINE today?

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

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy Pixabay.com