“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. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.” (John 15:1-8)
It may be Spring on the calendar, but no one told the weather. The last few days have been sunny, which gives you the illusion of warmth until you go outside and face the cold and wind.
I have been through seasons of life that felt the same. There was nothing outwardly that seemed to be wrong. There was no crisis, no gloomy clouds of doubt. But inwardly, I felt cold and blown by winds that I could not shake. In those times, it becomes easy to give in to introspection that questions everything. Just as you might question your plans on a cold, windy day, you find yourself searching for meaning in those seasons of spiritual winter. It is not despair, for we know that just as the cold of winter will pass into the new life of spring, our spiritual winter will birth a season of new life. But we struggle to make sense of such seasons.
I have learned to accept those seasons as a time for rumination and germination. It is a time to ask questions, but instead of forcing answers I allow those questions time to see what begins to grow and what withers away. Just as a gardener takes a seed and plants it in good soil, I plant my questions in the soil of a life having served a very faithful God. He knows His plans and purposes for me, and while I might feel like I am ready to take charge and be productive for the Kingdom, the Master Gardener knows that there are seasons of being hidden and germinating, becoming strong so that we can bear the pruning necessary to be productive in the next season.
The sun will shine, and the air will be warm and the winds refreshing, and what we have allowed God to do in our lives in those winter seasons will be rewarded with abundant fruit.
Sabbath is not primarily about us or how it benefits us. It is about God and how God forms us. It is not, in the first place, about what we do or don’t do. It’s about God completing and resting and blessing and sanctifying.
I read “The Way of the Pilgrim” this past fall and it really helped me see the importance of prayer as more than simply sending my requests to God. R.M. French, through his praying pilgrim, taught me how to pray always. Well, I still don’t pray always, but I pray more as I have developed the habit of having conversations with God. It is an act of faith, but one that reaps incredible rewards as you encounter the personal and living God. I highly recommend you read this book.
This past weekend I attended four different graduation ceremonies at Oklahoma State. Considering they had five ceremonies, I was at a pretty good percentage of them. Some of the staff and students joined me at different ceremonies so we could celebrate the accomplishments of our friends.
I have attended graduation ceremonies for years. At Texas A&M, I had a certain section and a certain row I sat in. Students knew where to find me. There were years when I would only attend one ceremony, and other years when I would attend as many as six ceremonies. It makes for long days, but the accomplishments of the students that have been a part of my life while in college deserve to be honored.
The ceremonies are all different. Some have no commencement speaker. Some have the students walk in, while others already have them in their seats. Some receive their degrees in alphabetical order, while in other ceremonies the students are seated in random order by the college. Bagpipes and drums, bands, pre-recorded and live state songs, and the national anthem are also varied.
But the common denominator is that families come to see their student receive their degrees. Mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends all make the trip and sit in uncomfortable chairs in crowded arenas for two hours just to be able to cheer for two seconds for their graduate. Often I get a chance to meet them, and many times it is the first time I have met the family. I get to meet the people I know only by name for a brief moment before graduate and family head home.
I come away from the weekend exhausted many times. But it is worth the effort. It is worth being a part of what is probably our last shared experience. It is seeing the full cycle of wide-eyed freshman to hopefully wisdom-filled graduate. We will have shared many moments. I am glad I am here to share the final one.
"So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the LORD of hosts. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts." Malachi 2:4-7 ESV
It can be interesting to lead people as a pastor. Sometimes so interesting that we get caught up in the day-to-day activities of sermon prep, administration, counseling, etc., and lose track that we serve God in a covenant of life, a covenant of peace, a covenant of wonder, and holy fear. We can lose sight of the fact that we stand in awe of the very name of God, the covenant creator, and forget our fellowship with Him.
Out of that covenant relationship, we learn how to instruct in God’s truth as we walk with Him in peace and uprightness as we serve as His messenger.
The covenant relationship comes first. The instruction comes out of that relationship. And then it repeats. Constantly. Continually.
2 Kings 4:17 And Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD and the king and people, that they should be the LORD’s people, and also between the king and the people. (ESV)
Joash was seven years old when he began to rule Judah. He was in no position to know how to rule. What seven-year-old is ready for that responsibility? So Jehoiada the priest stood in a position to help Joash learn how to lead, and he did so by starting with covenants.
That’s what priests did in the Old Testament. They worked in the world of covenants.
A covenant is “an agreement between two contracting parties, originally sealed with blood; a bond, or a law; a permanent religious dispensation. (COVENANT – JewishEncyclopedia.com)
As leaders living out our faith in Christ, we also work in the world of covenants.
Covenants are not communication.
Covenants are communion.
The task of living out God’s covenant given to us through Jesus Christ is not communication but communion — “the healing and restoration and creation of love relationships between God and his fighting children and our fought-over creation.” (The Contemplative Pastor, Eugene Peterson). It is loving God and loving others.
What are some of the ways we keep covenant before people?
As men and women of the covenant, we teach how to be the Lord’s people.
We remind people of not only God’s obligation in the covenant but our obligations as well.
We help identify the idols, the strongholds in life that need to be torn down.
[A note to my readers. During this time of “shelter-in-place” I thought I would write a series of devotionals aimed for those in vocational ministry. I recently re-read Eugene Peterson’s book “Working the Angles” and thought that this would be a great time to refocus on my ministry priorities. There is some good stuff in there for those who are not in vocational ministry, but it is geared particularly to those who are. –jd–]
Read
John 20:30-31 “Jesus worked many other miracles for his disciples, and not all of them are written in this book. But these are written so that you will put your faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. If you have faith in him, you will have true life.”
Meditate
I remember taking my first seminary class on the writings of John. It was an eye-opening experience as we experienced his Gospel and Epistles together. But one passage stuck out to me more than any other—John’s reason for writing his Gospel.
John wrote his Gospel because he was trying to connect his readers with a larger world. Yes, Jesus did miracles, so many that John selectively chose those he would include. But what he chose to include he chose for one reason and one reason only.
Jesus is the Son of God, and faith in him brings true life.
It is the message in a bottle. You thought this was life. You are surrounded by others just like you. You wake, go to school or work, toil in your labor, come home, sleep, and do it all over again.
One day, walking on a beach, you discover a bottle washed up on the shore. It has a message inside which you quickly extract and read.
“Help is on the way.”
What help? Why do I need help? I’m like everyone else? We’re okay.
But that simple message in a bottle begins to stir something in your mind. A question forms—“What if I am not okay?”. You begin to wonder if this life is all there is.
Scripture is that message in a bottle that tells you this life is not all there is, and that help is on the way. And as we read it, we connect to that true life through faith in Jesus Christ.
Pray
Father, I need help. Help my faith to grow so that I may experience the fulness of life you have prepared for me. As I read your word, list that desire to grow, to realize I need your help to grow, rise up in me. Amen.
Contemplate
1. Meditate on John 20:30-31 today. What does it mean to have “true life” in Christ?
2. Grab a concordance and look up all the times John uses the word “life” in his Gospel. Take a few minutes and read those passages today.
(This devotional series is based on my notes from “Working the Angles” by Eugene Peterson)
[A note to my readers. During this time of “shelter-in-place” I thought I would write a series of devotionals aimed for those in vocational ministry. I recently re-read Eugene Peterson’s book “Working the Angles” and thought that this would be a great time to refocus on my ministry priorities. There is some good stuff in there for those who are not in vocational ministry, but it is geared particularly to those who are. –jd–]
Read
Leviticus 26:12 “I will walk with you—I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
Meditate
Like many people, I keep a journal. It has taken different forms over the years, from legal pads to notebooks to OneNote files. I enjoy going back and looking through them from time to time. Often, I look at what was happening and carry on a conversation with my distant past in my head. I see now know how the situations I was facing have resolved, the decisions I was going to make have played out, and I reassure my written past that we survived. I know the whole story.
When we read Scripture, we are entering into a conversation with God, and into the story of men and women who were facing situations and decisions as they lived their lives. We see the beginning of the story as well as the ending. We know what has occurred and how the matter has been settled. We see the development of the characters and understand that everything in this conversation has significance.
In these stories, we find ourselves. We learn that nothing in the world of Scripture can be made sense of apart from God, and nothing in our world can be made sense of unless we walk with him. In reading Scripture, we are engaging in an active conversation with God between the biblical past and our present situation.
In times of crisis, in times of pain, in times of frustration, we have to remember that we know the whole story. We have conversed with God, and in him it all makes sense.
Pray
Father, forgive me for reading scripture as some historical document and not as your living conversation with me. As I read, I see you at work. I can see the whole story. In my life right now, I don’t see the whole story, but I know you are at work. I trust you that this all makes sense. Amen
Contemplate
1. As you read the Bible today, find yourself in God’s conversation with his people. What is happening in your life right now that parallels the passage? Ask God to help you make sense of the things you are facing.
2. Keep a journal. If you don’t have one, start it. If you do have one, continue it. From time to time look back over your history and see how God has been faithful to you.
(This devotional series is based on my notes from “Working the Angles” by Eugene Peterson)
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