Day 25 – Forty Days in the Word

I am looking forward to leading worship today at Wesley! We will celebrate communion, make a last appeal for Saturday’s Mission Blitz, and baptize one of our young adults. My message is about Bible study with the text being from the Gospel of John, chapter 15.

Day 25 – Forty Days in the Word

Rather than use the scripture suggested by the workbook, I will use the paraphrase method on the scripture from which I will be preaching this morning.

John 15:4 –5

Live in me, as I live in you. Just as the branch cannot produce grapes unless it draws its source from the vine, neither can you produce the life of God unless you draw your source from Me. I am the vine, the central source of life, you are the branches, living in me. Those who live in me and I in them are exceptionally fruitful, but separated from me you can do nothing. (Bruce Baxter’s Paraphrase)

Paraphrasing these verses is not easy. Working on it is a discipline that gives me greater insight into the meaning. Reading my paraphrase increases my desire and my intention to live completely in Christ, allowing His life in me to make my life exceptionally fruitful. There is an invisibility at work here. My experience is with blackberries. I pruned my four bushes in December, and cut off a few dead branches. I always feel sorry for the dead ones, and wonder what caused their death. I wince when I prune the living branches, and trust that pruning them will produce greater fruit.

God has been at work pruning me during the last several months. I look forward to the fruitfulness that will follow, as I completely live in Christ, draw my strength, my life from Him, and expect my life to be fruitful as He works in me that which I could not work in myself.

Paul wrote in Romans 8 – “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (8:38-39)

Guide me on this precious sabbath morning, most Holy Lord as I live in you and you live in me. Speak through me, comfort through me, encourage through me, baptize through me. This is the day that You have made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.