Spiritual Gifts part 184: The Vinedresser is working for the glory of the Vine.

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Wednesday,
October 26, 2011

Spiritual Gifts Part 184: The Vinedresser is focused on the glory of the Vine – His Son.

What is discernment?

Discernment is being able to determine what is coming from the thinking of Christ and what is coming from doctrines of demons, 1Ti 4:1.

Mat 7:16
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?”

The vinedresser metaphor refers to God the Father as the author of the Pre-Designed Plan of God.

The vine metaphor refers to the humanity of Jesus Christ.
 

The vine is the basis for the production of divine good or fruit bearing.

Joh 15:2
“Every branch [believer] in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away [discipline]; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it [suffering for blessing] so that it may bear more fruit.”

Fruit through the branch is a metaphor for the divine good production of the Church age believer.

dead branches = dead works, or the production of the flesh.
live branches = divine good, or the production of the Spirit.

The branch in Christ that does not bear fruit refers to the believer who does not produce divine good.

First, he cuts off fruitless branches, which take away sap from the fruit-bearing branches.

Second, he constantly trims shoots from the fruit-bearing branches so that all the sap is concentrated on fruit bearing.

God the Father removes the “dead wood” through the law of volitional responsibility and divine discipline, Heb 12:11.

Heb 12:11
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.

It is the branch that BEARS FRUIT that He prunes!
There is a purpose behind this suffering: MORE FRUIT!

Sometimes He uses the gentle knife of conviction through God’s word.

So He has a second knife, the knife of affliction.

Dechaunac – first frost

“After winter exposure, this dead wood can be easily recognized as dark, brittle, and sapless, and can be removed.”

Dechaunac – Unpruned.

Winter is when trees have lost all of their leaves.

There is less of the day, and more of the night. Night season.

Winter is also when we start to look at life MORE REALISTICALLY.

Heb 12:27
This expression, "Yet once more," denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Dechaunac – Pruned

Winter may be a time when your fellowship with God seems to have gone dark and icy and frozen.

Our spiritual life is a life that is designed to be alive and active.
 
Sometimes, though, we live in the dead wood and useless shoots.

Adversity is a reminder that our true life is not caught up in earthly things that are fading away .

When our shoots and tendrils and canes are no more, we are driven to turn to the Vine for our life.

A shoot can be a concept of Christ that is small and limited and still very far away from the heart of who He is.

It might be God as the great vending machine in the sky.

It might be a tit for tat God: I do this for you and you do this for me.

You might have a god in your head that you are still trying to please. 
You don’t yet understand what propitiation really means.

Your god might be a short order cook; you expect to step up to the counter, put in your order, and… voila.

Or he might be a sales manager god, looking for that report on the number of cold calls you made last month.

Or a temperamental god who loves you one day and can’t stand you the next.

 

 


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