Tag Archive for John 15

Love Is Fruit

2018-04-22 Devotional with Hymn No comments

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” (John 15:5, 12, NASB)

How can we love each other as Christ loves us?

Abide in the Vine.
Stay connected to Him.
Stay connected throughout the day,
turning to Him and
talking to Him often.

His presence,
His Spirit,
His perspective will start to permeate our
hearts,
minds, and
lives.

His love will be the fruit of our remaining in Him.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: I Look to You, and You Are Love
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Lord of Time

2018-01-09 Hymns No comments

A Hymn based on
Psalm 31:14-15; John 15:5; Ephesians 5:15-16

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I fight with time. I rush. I wait.
I plan. I press. I stay up late.
I try so hard to regulate
What only You control.

Great Lord of time, above its flow,
You give us time to change, to grow,
To learn to live the love we owe
To You, all-gracious God!

In Christ we learn what time can be:
A frame for love unrushed and free,
The pure and perfect harmony
Of life immersed in You.

The fruitfulness that we pursue
Flows not from what our plans can do
But Lord, from living all in You,
The ever-fruitful Vine.

The Key to Fruitfulness

2017-04-26 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read John 15:1-8; Hebrews 12:1-11

How can you be fruitful – in your daily living, in your relationships, in your service, and in prayer life?

Remain in the vine. All your fruitfulness flows from Jesus Christ. Just as His relationship with the Father was the key to His fruitfulness, so it is with you. Your relationship with the Father through Jesus is the key to your fruitfulness. Do everything you can to nurture your relationship with Him. Make that the #1 priority in your life, just as Jesus’ relationship with the Father was His constant focus and deepest desire.

Our Father will do all He can to increase our fruitfulness. How?

Every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit (John 15:2, NASB).

The Father prunes us. Such pruning is essential if vines are to produce the very best fruit possible. The vine’s precious sap cannot be wasted supporting branches that are unfruitful. Only the fruit-bearing branches may remain.

So it is with us. The Father prunes or cleans us of any unfruitful elements in our lives. As we allow Him, He cuts away anything in us that drains our time, attention, energy, and resources without bearing fruit.

How does God prune us? By His word (v.3). His revealed wisdom teaches us how to live fruitfully.

  • By His Spirit. His Spirit applies His word to our individual lives.
  • By other means of grace, such as the Church and our fellow believers.

Pruning is not a one-time process. As with branches in a vine, things grow up in our lives that drain away our attention without bearing fruit. If our lives are to bear the best fruit possible, these unfruitful elements must be regularly pruned away.

Study and prayerfully apply God’s word. Be diligent about the means of grace. Stay tuned to the Spirit’s voice. The writer of Hebrews likened this pruning to parental discipline when he wrote: 

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:11, NASB)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Remain in Me
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Fruitful Prayer

2017-03-22 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read John 14:12-14; 15:7-8; 16:23-28

Part of a fruitful relationship with God is prayer. As Jesus taught His disciples for the final time before His crucifixion, three times He talked about prayer. Three times He made the lavish promise, “Ask, and you will receive.”

What did He mean by this? Is this a blank check to indulge all our desires?

Whenever we want to understand what a person is saying, we have to take it in context, in the flow of what he or she is communicating. Taking isolated sentences out of context is a recipe for disaster, whether in daily conversation or in interpreting the Bible.

Read today’s scriptures, and notice the contexts for Jesus’ promises about prayer. The context is always Christian service. He is talking about asking for ministry purposes, not for personal reasons. The focus is on bearing fruit for the Father. There will be times in God’s work when we will either ask the Father plainly for what is needed, or the job won’t get done. So ask!

Ask for the Father’s benefit, not your own. Ask in Jesus’ name, for His purposes, for the Father’s glory. Prayer is not drawing the all-wise, all-loving Father down to your petty, personal viewpoint. Prayer is drawing us upward into His perspective and His concerns. Sovereign God is not going to dance to your tune. He wants to teach you to dance to His. Note what James says: 

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:2b-3, NASB)

Pray as a branch in the Vine. Pray out of the life you share with Jesus Christ. Pray as standing in the loving Father’s presence, as a brother or sister of Jesus Christ, as His friend and servant.

Pray as Jesus would pray, and the Father will answer you as He would answer Jesus.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Ever Standing in Your Presence
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Fruitful Living

2017-02-22 Devotional with Hymn, Pictures of God No comments

from the devotional book, PICTURES OF GOD

Read Matthew 7:15-20; 12:33-35; John 15:9-17

Our Father is like any other vinedresser: he wants fruit from His vine. What fruit does God want from you?

As you live in the Vine, Jesus Christ, His Spirit lives in you. As you are led by the Spirit of Christ, you think and speak and live like Christ. You bear the same fruit that the Father prized so highly from Jesus Christ.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23, NASB).

Read Matthew 7:15-20 and 12:33-35. A good tree produces good fruit. As you remain as a branch in Jesus Christ, His Spirit will grow His character in your life.

Notice what is listed first among the fruits of the Spirit of Christ: The fruit of the Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22, NASB). As Jesus taught His disciples for the final time before His crucifixion, notice what He repeatedly emphasized:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35, NASB)

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you (John 15:12, NASB)

This I command you, that you love one another (John 15:17, NASB).

The Spirit of Christ unites us with the Father, Son, and Spirit. We grow to breathe the love and unity that makes them one. We love as the Father loves the Son. We love as the Son loves the Father and freely, joyfully, completely submits to Him.

As we share life and love with the Father, Son, and Spirit, we grow to love as they love. I am finding this true in my own experience. I feel disinclined to talk badly about a person my Father loves. As I love Him, how can I not love someone who is so dear to Him? By my words or deeds, how can I hurt one about whom He cares so deeply?

This love, the love of Christ, is one of the precious fruits that grow in us as we abide in the Vine.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: I Look to You, and You Are Love
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Father and Son

2016-05-01 Devotional with Hymn, One with Our Father, Uncategorized No comments

from the book, ONE WITH OUR FATHER 

John 14 – 17 

Father, I was attracted to Your Son Jesus
because of You.
I sensed in Him something more than myself,
something more than I could ever be on my own.
I sensed You in Him,
the Almighty God,
the absolute,
the transcendent,
the pure,
the impossibly holy.
Yet Your purity was now human,
seeable,
touchable, and
relatable.
I saw “human” and “holy” joined
in one Person.
I was drawn to
love Him and
trust Him
because I saw You
in Him.

Now, I find Him drawing me back to You.
Through Him I am learning to know You.
Through Him I am brought into Your holy presence.
I am finding Him to be
the way to You,
the truth about You,
the life that flows from You.
In Him I hear all Your heart wishes to say to us.
In Him I begin to see all You are doing for us.
In Him I share Your Father-Son relationship:
I receive a Father’s deep love for His holy Son.
I return a Son’s worshiping love for His pure and perfect Father.

In Your Son I breathe
Your Spirit,
the same Spirit that made Your Son so beautiful.
In Him I breathe
Your wisdom,
Your holiness,
Your love.
In Christ,
through Your Spirit,
I breathe the peace and perfect union of
Father and Son.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Father and Son
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