Devotions

It was Jesus’ final night with the disciples and He knew His time was short. They had just finished supper and Christ wanted to impart to His friends one last teaching while on earth. He summoned them, “Rise, let us go from here” (John 14:31, ESV) and led them on a walk. Along the way He gave them this analogy:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches” (15:1-5).

What a lovely image summing up our relationship to the Son and the Father. Jesus is the vine and we are branches extending from Him; He is the source of all life flowing into us. Overseeing all of this life-flow is our heavenly Father, the gardener who tends to our growth. Could there be any more serene image of our life in Christ?

There is a lot to unpack in this one passage—and I can assure you, all of it is good. The image of a blade comes to mind, the instrument of an expert gardener—our merciful, compassionate, loving Lord. There is deep beauty contained in this parting message He gave to His church and the first key to understanding this passage is Jesus’ phrase “true vine.”

Christ is telling us He is more than a mere life source to us—He’s the life source. Other “vines” may appear to promise life but none contain true life as He does. Some Christians seek life from other vines, sources that destroy life and aren’t legitimate for any Christian. Others seek life from sources that seem good and legitimate—ambition and drive, success and comfort—but these vines in themselves are lifeless. They can’t produce true life. Jesus wants us grafted firmly into Him so that we may drink deeply of His abundant life every day.
 

I remember that when I first left my secular job in order to enter ministry fulltime, I put a certain amount of money into the bank from my retirement plan. I figured that if the whole ministry thing did not work out, at least I had a slush fund to fall back on. One day, a friend who was also in ministry came into my office and said, “Pastor, I don’t know what I’m going to do. The engine in my car just blew up, and I don’t have any money. I don’t even know how I’m going to get to church.”

I knew that his need was legitimate, and I also knew that I had enough money in the bank to buy him a car. Yet, suddenly I got very, very spiritual and said, “Well, let’s pray. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, so He is well able to provide. David said, ‘I have been young and now I’m old, and I have never seen the righteous forsaken or His seed begging bread’” (see Psalm 37:25).

As he sat there across the desk, I bowed my head and we began to pray—yet, it was as if my mouth was full of peanut butter. I could hardly pray, for all the while this little voice behind me was saying, “You hypocrite! If a man sees his brother in need and he shuts his bowels of compassion, how can he say the love of God dwells in him?” (see 1 John 3:17). I kept trying to push it out of my mind as I was praying until finally I ran out of gas and said, “I have money in the bank if you need it.”

I ended up buying him a new car. Shortly after that the engine in my car blew up and at that point I said, “Well, Lord, I have obeyed You. That’s all I can say.”

Sometime later, we were renovating a church that we had purchased in the country. I was up on a scaffold, helping to paint the ceiling, when suddenly somebody came in and said, “You have an emergency call!” When I got on the phone, the man on the line introduced himself as a salesman at a local car dealership. Then he said, “A gentleman came in this morning and bought you a brand-new car. All you have to do is come in and sign for it!” I asked him the identity of the gentleman, but he told me that he had chosen to remain anonymous.

Now please understand that that I am not telling you that if you buy a car for a friend, you are going to get a new one in return. My point is simply that as we do things God’s way, refusing to hold back when we see a genuine need before us, God will be our supply and meet our needs.

Carter Conlon joined the pastoral staff of Times Square Church in 1994 at the invitation of the founding pastor, David Wilkerson, and was appointed Senior Pastor in 2001. A strong, compassionate leader, he is a frequent speaker at the Expect Church Leadership Conferences conducted by World Challenge throughout the world.

We think that when we fail to trust God in our daily situations, we only harm ourselves. We think we’re simply missing out on His blessings. But that isn’t the whole story. First of all, we hurt and anger our blessed Lord. He warns, “If you don’t trust Me, you’re going to develop a hardened heart.”

We read in Hebrews: “Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest” (Hebrews 3:8-11).

What reason is given for God’s people being unable to enter into His rest? Was it because of adultery, covetousness, drunkenness? No, it was because of unbelief alone. Here was a nation exposed to forty years of miracles, supernatural wonders that God worked on their behalf. No other people on earth had been so loved, so tenderly cared for. They received revelation after revelation of the goodness and severity of the Lord. They heard a fresh word preached regularly from Moses, their prophet leader.

But they never mixed that word with faith. Therefore, hearing it did them no good. In the midst of all those blessings, they still didn’t trust God to be faithful. And over time, unbelief set in. From that point on, darkness covered their wilderness journey.

Unbelief is the root cause behind all hardness of heart. Hebrews asks, “With whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness?” (3:17). The Greek word for grieved here signifies indignation, outrage, anger. Simply put, the people’s unbelief kindled God’s anger against them. Moreover, it hardened them into a continual spiral of unbelief: “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God . . . lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin” (3:12-13).

Unbelief is the mother of all sins. It was the first sin committed in the Garden of Eden and it’s at the root of all bitterness, rebellion and coldness. That’s why Hebrews 3 is addressed to believers (“Take heed, brethren”). The writer concludes with these chilling words: “To whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief” (3:18-19).
 

There is a minister I’ve known for a number of years. Every time I had encountered him in the past, I had said to my wife afterward, “That man is so shallow. Such a boastful show-off. I don’t know how God could ever bless him.” Then I met this same man after the Holy Ghost had dealt with me about judging others. This time, the Spirit told me, “Love him. Be quiet and listen to him. Then pray with him.”

I obeyed. I loved the man, listened to him talk, and afterward took his hand and prayed. As soon as we parted ways, a strange thing happened to me: I was stricken with grief. A terror swept over me—the terror of what I’d done to this man over the years. I saw the exceeding sinfulness of my defiling sin.

David exhorts, “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). The apostle Paul adds this perspective: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” (4:29-30).

Dear saint, not a person reading this message is too holy to heed it and make a change. For my part, I feel God’s grief over all the ways I’ve misjudged people through the years, whether knowingly or unknowingly. I urge you to cry out as my heart does:

“Oh, Lord, why wasn’t I ready to hear this sooner? Why haven’t I dealt with this before now? I want to proclaim Your gospel, declare Your generation. Please, Jesus, forgive me. Cleanse my defiled mouth, my defiled ears, my defiled eyes. And give me a renewed heart. I want nothing to hinder my life from being a full manifestation of who You are.”

May the Lord hear our cry and move quickly to remake us. He will give us strength to put away all evil speaking, evil listening and mental judging. Then we’ll be better able to prolong the days of our Lord.
 

How do you think Jesus would start a church in your city or town?

The first thing Christ would do is go on a weeping tour throughout your area. Scripture tells us, “When he was come near, he beheld [Jerusalem], and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes” (Luke 19:41-42).

What made Jesus weep? It began with a heartbreaking walk He took around the city. He was overcome with grief at the sight of so-called religious people who had no peace. These people had rejected the truth for fables and now they were following a dead form of religion. They were sheep without true shepherds.

Now, I’m not out to judge any minister. But I want to ask everyone reading this message: Can you imagine your pastor driving through your town and weeping over it? What a different image Jesus gives us from so many of the plotters and planners building churches today. These men go door to door, surveying people, asking what they want in a church: “How long would you like the sermon to be? Fifteen minutes? Ten?”

Jesus witnessed a form of this in His own day. As He walked through the temple, He saw tables of moneychangers, ministers who merchandised the things of God. There was no real prayer, no fear of the Lord. And Christ wept over it all, crying, “It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Luke 19:46).

I ask you: Would Jesus weep over what He sees in your church today? Would He find your pastor anguishing over lost souls? Would Christ find His people praying or would He find them occupied by busyness and programs, focusing on their own interests?

Once Jesus concludes His weeping tour of your city, would He commend His people? Or would He bring this warning: “You’re blind to the times. Judgment is at the door, but you look more like the world than ever. Why aren’t you praying, seeking Me for strength and wisdom to redeem the time?”