Let’s Abide in Christ Together
Dear Parents and Friends of CCS,
I hope this edition of Parent News finds you walking closely with the God of all comfort.
I want to begin by expressing my gratitude to our friends at FDLE for their informative presentation on Internet Safety at King’s Crossing last night.
It left the audience well-informed on the bigger picture of the challenges we face as parents, grandparents and educators as we inoculate our children with the mind of Christ, so that they can deal safely with the many temptations that await them in digital spaces.
It also left us wanting a continuing conversation on this subject. Our Security Director, Ray Hernandez, is working on a “Internet Safety Part 2” that will operate more as an interactive workshop that will provide the space to apply best practices in real time and experiment with the recommended safeguards using your own phone. More on this later.
Please save the date for our next Tuesdays at King’s Crossing event, a panel discussion on Anxiety and Kids, on November 12 from 6:30-8:00pm at King’s Crossing.
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As I mentioned last week, recently I have been living in Chapter 15 of the gospel of John, as well as the book “Abide in Christ”, by the 19th c. South African pastor, Andrew Murray.
This classic book, available here, provides a powerful devotional look at the famous “I am the Vine” section of John 15.
Please check out my October 17 Parent News article for some context on this great passage. For now, here’s a quick takeaway of the chapter as a whole:
In John 15 we are told that it is literally possible to so abide/remain in Jesus that we can live in victory i.e. produce much fruit, right in the midst of our daily lives, no matter how rough it gets – even to the point of persecution.
The Holy Spirit of Jesus will be with us, and His love will be in us as a guiding and sustaining force.
Today let’s take a brief look at the first section of the chapter, verses 1-4:
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit.
3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.
In this opening section we find some very important, yet not always easy to apply, takeaways.
The main actor in this scenario is Christ Himself. It is so easy to read this and think that God is just adding “one more brick to our backpack”, and that we have to perform better in order to not be “removed”. Instead, Jesus is reminding His disciples that He is the real issue, the provider, the main actor in their lives. Every bit of sustenance, wisdom and lasting power ultimately comes from Him. At the same time, we clearly have meaningful choices to make as we organize, prioritize and live out HIs commands day by day.
Just because things are difficult doesn’t mean you are a failure. When a sincere disciple is showing up every day, talking and listening to God primarily through His word but also through the real time activity of the Holy Spirit, and acting on what they hear, He is pleased — even if the fruit of our life at that moment is minimal. And it’s also true that we generally are producing more fruit than we think, since a lot of it is hidden, like the growth of a seed hidden in the soil.
Sometimes, when we’ve been working on a hard field for a long time e.g. a workplace that is hostile to the things of God we can become discouraged with our lack of progress, and even feel guilty about our “poor performance”. Well, of course, if we have sin in our lives we need to hate it, confess it, repent of it and receive God’s loving forgiveness. But if we’ve done that, our best next step is to “look to Jesus”, which means to
Invite Him directly into your situation. This functionally means that you become more aware of His presence, and you are reminded that He cares and His Spirit is with you, helping you move through to victory in whatever you are facing.
Meditate on and memorize His word on a near-daily basis.
Sit with Him, talking with Him like a friend. This means you speak and He speaks (generally not audibly — but sometimes His voice is so clear it seems audible!)
Act, being careful to not get out ahead of your skis I.e. thinking 10 steps down the trail. Just do the next right thing as God reveals it.
Fruit needs to be defined, or it’s really hard to tell whether we‘re producing it or not. There are many Scriptural definitions (adapted from C. C. Ryrie in So Great A Salvation):
A faithful witness, which can result in souls being won to Jesus
The “fruit of the Spirit”, listed in Galatians 6, leading to a Christ-like character
A life characterized by good works done in God’s way and in His timing
A pair of lips that praise god
A generous sharing of one’s possessions
We must become convinced of and regularly rehearse our own inability to actually produce godly fruit, while at the same time boldly confessing our complete and utter dependence on and trust in the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
Let me suggest in closing that we commit together to spend time together in this glorious chapter of God’s word over the next few weeks.
Perhaps a good way for us to begin is to read the whole chapter aloud, at least once a day (and preferably 2-3 times) this week, asking the Spirit to illuminate His truth to you in a new and deeper way.
You may want to get the Andrew Murray book as well, since he is a proven and trusted guide through this passage. His analysis far surpasses mine, and will be helpful to you on the journey.
Please join me in this daily prayer:
Father God, help me to abide in Christ so deeply that the daily grind of work and ministry and life cannot drag me down, cannot overcome His joy in me, cannot crush my peace in Him. And help me to serve You fruitfully out of that overflow.
Now may God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them, receive all of the glory as we continue to move step by step toward becoming a truly extraordinary school, for the greater glory of God.
For CCS and the Kingdom,
Tom