journey

Out with the Old

/ EllieJ

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

John 15:2 (NASB)

Hands up if you’ve heard preachers dole out condemnation along with this verse? “If yer not livin’ fer Jesus, He’s a-gonna cut you right off and toss ya into the pit of fire!” (*insert southern preacher voice here.) It’s not a comforting thought about a God who literally claims to be the full embodiment of love.

So what does pruning here actually entail? It does not include God coming at the church with a machete like an backwoods bushwacker. According to The Passion Translation study notes, the term take away actually means that he takes up [to himself] every fruitless branch. As in, He lifts those wilted, lifeless, unproductive branches off the ground where they will spoil and puts them in a position where they can become productive. God’s version pruning isn’t cutting people away, it’s placing them in the best possible place to succeed.

So where does the cutting come in?

I’ve learned a few things about vine-tending. Pruning happens in the winter—after harvest and before the spring buds start to appear. A good vinedresser is not shy about pruning. The most common mistake people make is not pruning enough. When it comes to trees, a good, sturdy trunk with good sturdy branches is ideal. It means that thing is going to stay standing and provide shade for a long while. With vines, a sturdy root stock is important, but when it comes to branches, old is bad, new is good.

Old growth on vines doesn’t produce. It just steal the much needed energy from the new growth that produces the best and most fruit.

“This church hasn’t changed a lick in over a century!” Good for you. That’s why the congregation is the same size and meeting in the same building as it was a hundred years ago. Many (I’d even go so far as to say most) professing Christians hold on to traditions of the past—traditions that we have no biblical example for. Those are old growth believers, still a part of the vine, but not producing because they refuse to endure the discomfort of the pruning required to promote new growth.

If I’ve learned anything on my journey to where I am today it’s that letting go of what I used to think has been well worth gaining what I now know. That’s what childlike faith is—coming to God with a blank slate and then, like every kid ever, keep asking “why?”

God makes us ask ourselves questions most often when He intends to resolve them.

Thomas Merton

If we really believe that we serve an infinite God, why would we ever stop asking questions? Why would we be satisfied as a tough old branch that might sprout a few leaves when we can be a shiny new vine that produces the good fruit?

If you’d like to see more on John 15:2, click here to purchase the commentary.

Introducing Verse-by-Verse

/ EllieJ

Before diving right in to this new phase, I want to give an introduction of how and why this commentary has come about and will continue to come and evolve as it goes.

All that has come before has led to this.

The story begins in 2017 when I decided to read the Bible cover to cover in a year—not just read it, but get something out of it. Daily: A Year in the Word of God was born. What began as a new spiritual journey for me ended the year with a series of 13 four-week devotional books with my thoughts regarding some of the scriptures I’d read every day throughout the year. In 2018, my plan was to once again read through the Bible in a year, forcing myself to dig deeper. My original intent was to end the year with another publication.

Sometime in the spring of 2018, God finally got my attention. It turns out I’d been reading my Bible looking for my next blog post rather than the True Reality of Jesus Christ (John 14:6 TPT). So the posts ended and my reading continued. As summer hit, I hit my own block. I felt like I’d run into a wall. My spiritual well felt as though it had run totally dry. So I actually set my Bible aside and started picking up some other books hoping to jar myself out of the funk I’d found myself in.

Books like The Way Back: How Christians Blew Our Credibility and How We Get it Back by Phil Cooke, Letters to the Church by Francis Chan, and Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola started to open my eyes to a version of Christianity I’d never even dared to dream about.

By the time 2018 ended and 2019 began, I was ready to embark on a new journey. Little did I know how deep down the rabbit hole it would take me. On January 19, 2019, I opened my Bible to John 1:1 intent on discovering for myself who Jesus really is and what He really said about His Church.

Nearly two years later, I’m still gloriously mired in John’s gospel. The road has been bumpy (bumpy like a Saskatchewan back road in spring) and it has been long. I’ve experienced more pain than I thought I ever would. But I’ve also experienced joy. Best of all, I’ve experienced Jesus. I’ve come to know Jesus in a light that all my years of church involvment and attendance never prepared me for or introduced me to. For many, 2020 has been a year of hardship and trial. For me, it’s been a year I’d never trade for anything. As I dig deeper into the scriptures I’ve found Jesus in every word of every verse of every translation.

Verse-by-Verse is my way of attempting to share some of what I’ve discovered on my own journey. Nothing I’ve discovered is linear. It’s not a road. It’s more like the Amazon River, running deep and wide while spreading out fingers into any place it finds purchase. Be patient. Don’t rush. And don’t get frustrated if nothing seems to be in order. An incredible thing about God is that He exists outside of space and time and everything fits together within Him. It really all work out in the end because it has already been worked out.

I invite you to join me in this amazing journey. Ask the big questions. Ask the strange questions. Don’t dismiss ideas because they might not align with what you’ve always been taught. You may be as surprised as I have been at the answers you receive.

Through the wilderness

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

In order to get to the place where God wants or needs you to be, He may lead you through the wilderness. When God led Israel out of Egypt, the final destination was never the wilderness. They should have only been passing through for a couple of weeks. Instead, they took their eyes off the prize and ended up wandering for forty years in a place they were never meant to stay.

Give thanks to him who led his people through the wilderness.
His faithful love endures forever.

Psalm 136:16 (NLT)

Was God unfaithful because Israel stayed in the wilderness? Did His love not endure through that time of trial, grief, and wandering? No. God didn’t fail in that situation, Israel did. God brought them to the place He promised and it was Israel who failed to take hold of the promise.

We may look at Israel and scoff, yet we ourselves may be caught in the wilderness. We may find ourselves in a place where we don’t see or feel God. We allow ourselves to get stuck on the way to the promise and lose sight of where we were headed in the first place. Paul tells us that we are in a race. No one ever won a race by pausing on the path. Even in the story of the tortoise and the hare, the quick rabbit who paused lost the race because he took a rest in the middle of his journey. He forgot his purpose. He became too sure of himself and his own abilities. It wasn’t talent that won the race, it was persistence and purpose.

So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step. I am not like a boxer who misses his punches.

1 Corinthians 9:26 (NLT)

Are we running straight toward the goal God has set before us or are we wandering along the way? Remember that God never leads us to the wilderness, but He may lead us through.

If you find yourself in a spiritually dry place, remember that’s not where God wants you to be. Seek Him. Look for direction. Refocus your sight on the promises God has made. Then run. Run straight to the goal with purpose in every step. Don’t stop. Don’t hesitate. Keep your eyes on God, not the situation around you.

He will lead you through the wilderness.

Daily Bible reading: Psalm 136-138, 1 Corinthians 9

About the future

/ EllieJ / Leave a comment

Yesterday we talked about the couple on the road to Emmaus—Cleopas and his wife. They walked seven miles with Jesus without recognising him. Cleopas talked for seven miles of all that had happened to Jesus while Jesus spoke to him of all the prophecies concerning the Messiah. Cleopas was still clueless. It wasn’t until they’d reached their destination, invited Jesus to stay for dinner and Jesus blessed and broke the bread that they realised who they’d been with the entire time.

Cleopas and his wife returned to Jerusalem to share their story with the rest of the disciples only to discover that Jesus had also shown himself to Peter. While all this is happening, Jesus suddenly appears again. He’s there. He’s not there. What are these people supposed to think? (Even after Jesus had said all along something like this would happen.) Even though Jesus stood before his believers with scars on his hands and feet and boiled fish in his belly, they doubted.

Then he [Jesus] said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me by Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must come true.” Then he opened their minds to understand these many scriptures.

Luke 24:44-45 (NLT)

These followers of Jesus knew him. They knew the scriptures. They had grown up hearing and reading the prophecies about the coming Saviour, yet when that Saviour stood right in front of them returned from the dead, they couldn’t understand. Not until it was revealed to them.

How many situations do we go through in our lives when we can’t see God? We beg and we plead and we walk away in disappointment because we couldn’t see the answer. We stand on the promises of God only to throw them back in His face because we are blinded by our own hurt and pain. Spiritual tunnel vision. We only see one thing.

Yet God sent the Spirit to show us many things.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting his own ideas; he will be telling you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me. All that the Father has is mine; this is what I mean when I say that the Spirit will reveal to you whatever he receives from me.

John 16:13-15 (NLT)

If we truly believe and trust in God, we be assured that the Holy Spirit will lead and guide us into all truth. Even in the difficult situations—the times when it seems as though God is far—the Spirit can reveal Truth to us. He can open up our vision to see purpose in the pain and to help us through our hurt.

Cleopas and his wife assumed Jesus had abandoned them to the point of walking away, yet Jesus chose to walk with them on their journey. They didn’t understand everything until they’d returned, but Jesus was still there. Walking with them. Talking to them words from the past about the future.

If you’re like the disciples in Jerusalem, disappointed, but still waiting for a miracle or like Cleopas and his wife, walking away, Jesus is there. He appeared to both parties where they were. Don’t fool yourself into thinking he can’t reach you where you are.

Daily Bible reading: 1 Kings 12-13, Luke 24:36-53

Detour

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How much of the Bible do you believe? A little bit? A lot? All of it?

In the short time Jesus ministered on earth, those who followed him saw miracle after miracle. They listened to his teachings. They trusted him. They believed he was the fulfillment of the prophecies that said one would come to be the King of the Jews. Jesus was that man. Jesus’ followers believed of him what they wanted to believe.

Jesus made no secret of the fact that He would have to die. But He also never hid the fact that He would rise again. These things His followers seemed to ignore.

It’s now Sunday following Jesus’ death. (We know that He wasn’t put to death, but He gave up His own life.) Jesus’ followers are dismayed because He’s dead. The man who was supposed to rescue them from the tyranny of Roman rule had be put in the grave. Some people stick around. Maybe someone else will step into His shoes. Others leave.

We meet a couple on the road to Emmaus. We’ve never met these two before. Some scholars believe they were husband and wife. Cleopas was the man’s name. We never learn the name of his companion. These two were discussing the events of the last few days when a man joins them on their journey and asks about their conversation. Cleopas, astonished that this stranger has no idea of what just happened in Jerusalem, goes on to tell this man about all that had taken place.

Jesus goes on to explain all of the prophecy in the scripture that pointed to Him and all that had to happen. Cleopas and his companion are taken in by this man and, when they reach Emmaus, invite him to dine with them and spend the night as it was getting late. It wasn’t until Jesus took the bread from the table, blessed it, and broke it, that Cleopas and his wife truly saw the man before them.

How often do we walk away in disappointment, baffled that what we thought was supposed to happen didn’t? We believed what we wanted to believe and ignored the stuff we didn’t like because it didn’t suit us. But still, in our ignorance, Jesus is with us—walking beside us on the road that leads away from the place we’re supposed to be. Yet, if we’d only believed everything He said, we’d have never left in the first place.

Listen to or read Seven Mile Miracle by Steven Furtick. You’ll learn that God is not the God of the destination, but the God of the detour. He is found, not in the dramatic, but in the details.

Our Christian walk is just that, a journey, not a destination. It is a long walk and—get this—Jesus walks it with us! No matter where you are—whether you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be or you’ve walked away in disappointment, Jesus is right there walking the road with you.

Daily Bible reading: 1 Kings 10:11, Luke 24:1-35