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I am the true vine

John 15:1

A long time ago, on the night before Passover, twelve men walked the narrow streets of ancient Jerusalem going from an upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane. 

All of them were from Galilee in the north—fishermen, craftsmen, one tax collector—ordinary men with no value in the Roman empire, except for the tax collector.  They were led by, of all things, a carpenter, though by the time they were together He was a recognized Teacher. He had attracted a handful of men who listened to what He said and debated it among themselves. They had a different understanding of what He was saying, but He was radical, and they were radical, so they listened to Him with expectation that He meant what He said. Eventually they would become as radical as He was, but not yet.  Nonetheless, we need to understand His words to them in that upper room, today as much as they did if we are going to be used to make the difference He wants to make through us. Consider these few words.

I am the true vine.

I AM

For us this has the ordinary meaning of who He is, a statement of identity, but He means far more than that. He means I AM YAHWEH, the God of the Old Testament, the One Who Is, the Ruler of All, the Covenant Maker and Covenant Keeper, who delivered the nation out of Egypt and gave them the privilege of being His people. He is the One who met them at Mt. Sinai and made them into a nation, and who has kept His covenants with them. What it must have been like to walk along the streets of Jerusalem with Him after hearing Him declare that He was the Maker and Keeper of the New Covenant through the Cross.

THE

He is the One who made the New Covenant, the only One who makes eternal covenants and keeps His word, the One who we can trust no matter what happens. Jesus, in John 15, is talking to His leaders, those who will speak for Him, equip others for Him, reproduce for Him, and who will prepare one generation after another for Him.  We, as His leaders, must also lay the foundation for Him, bear fruit for Him, and matter for Him.  These are the aspects that give us life, strength, and value, all the elements that make us leaders.  There are many claims, but He is the only one who does what He does. The, a small word with an amazing meaning that speaks to us, His leaders, in the 21^st century.

I AM THE TRUE

He is the true vine, the real thing, in radical contrast to all others who claim to be the true sources of life and success. Large numbers of leaders rely on false resources in the name of Jesus, and don’t even know they do that. The primary source of significance for many who lead is themselves. They do all the things they must do to become leaders, but what they produce is temporary, weak, without fruit, and then gone. Only Jesus does what is eternal, and He does this through us. No other vine can bear eternal fruit.

I AM THE TRUE VINE

He had to tell them this on His last night with them to prepare them for His departure and to get them—and us—ready for the Great Commission. This is part of the coming assignment.

Think about Jesus as the Stem in your life and ministry because He is the Source.

He is the Sustainer of your Life.

He is the Strength of your Life.

He is the Enablement of your Life.

He is the Stability of your Life.

He is the Fruit of your Life.

He is the Value of your Life.

He is the Identity of your Life.

He is the Reason for your Life.

He is the Hope of your Life.

All of this is what it means for Him to be our Vine.  As a leader, we must be radically dependent on Him because HE IS THE TRUE VINE.

The only way you can be effective as His leader is to be radically dependent on the Vine for life and fruit. You can have position, recognition, honor, authority, and all the other elements that are part of leadership, but you will never bear His kind of fruit without His enablement.  Draw on these truths and you will accomplish things you would never have otherwise. 

“. . . make disciples of all the nations . . .”

Mt. 28:19

This is the start of several resources designed to help you grasp how you can learn what Jesus did to obey the Great Commission. The one aim of these concepts is to enable you to form leaders in obedience to Christ’s command to make disciples­­—that is, to reproduce leaders who reproduce leaders. This is exactly what Jesus did with the men He formed during His time on earth, this was His intent in giving this commission in the moments before He ascended onto His throne at the right hand of the Father, and that is exactly what the intent of the following materials are designed to do.

Reproducing leaders is the impact of an effective leader who wants to make a difference for Christ. A constantly triumphant leader produces constantly effective leaders. This is the essence of the Leader Formation message. Any leader who forms future leaders according to the biblical principles found in this truth will gradually produce effective leaders who will equip even more productive leaders. As a result, the body of Christ will do what God created it to do and reach the world with the Good News concerning Jesus. Your church will grow, your community will receive Jesus, your city will have many new believers in Christ, and your nation will be changed according to His will just as the Roman Empire was impacted after the cross and the resurrection. The leaders of Israel and the rulers of Rome both tried to resist God’s truth and destroy the body of Christ only to be overcome by God and replaced by the gospel. What happened in the first three hundred years of this era will happen today, even in the most resistant parts of the world, if only leaders will have the heart of Christ, a head that is influenced by God’s truth, and hands that are empowered by the Holy Spirit. The purpose of every Christian leader is to form leaders who lead this way.

God wants you to equip others in order to build your ministry, strength Christians in your business, or lead an organization or church that impacts your world with the gospel. This is what you can accomplish through this thinking because this is what I have seen in fifty years of forming leaders. I have certainly not done this alone, but I have seen the truths found in these studies work in amazing ways as many have learned them and implemented them through radical dependence on Him.

Bless the Lord Oh my soul...Bless His holy name
Psalm 103:1

How do we become all that God wants us to be this year? What can we do to live 2020 in obedience to God and thus become a blessing to Him? Scripture instructs us to Bless the Lord and to Bless His holy name. God is a holy God and we are unholy, yet He wants us to bless Him. What does this mean? How can we possibly be a blessing to God? Does He want ordinary sinful men and women like us to bless Him? Yes, He does or He wouldn’t command us in His word to bless Him as He does. How do we bless Him? After all, He blesses us, we don’t bless Him, or do we? Consider some of the ways we can bless God.

By thanking Him for all that He has done...

We first thank God for salvation by which we are delivered from condemnation. We have been given a permanent relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three gave themselves to give us eternal life. The Father released His Son for us. The Son gave His life on the cross for us. And the Spirit gives us His power by living in us. How can we do anything but thank Him? When we thank Him for all that He has done and is doing in our life, we will bless Him.

By trusting Him even when we don’t want to...

Life is painful at times, so we may become resentful and not want to respond to God. But He still wants us to bless Him even when we don’t feel like it. We may deny our faith as Moses did. He attacked God and accused him of doing evil. Imagine that—he called the sovereign holy God evil. Yet God used him and He made Moses the leader of His people. We may not be able to see or understand what God is doing in our life, we may feel that He is failing us, but we must still trust Him, remembering that He loves us so much that He was willing to sacrifice His own Son on our behalf. When we trust Him we will bless Him.

By worshipping Him even when we doubt...

Worship is an act of exalting God and being dependent on Him no matter what our circumstances. It is relying on Him in the midst of facing a powerful opponent and keeping our mind centered firmly on God alone. Worship is crying out to God and turning away from ourselves to focus only on Him. It is praising Him for who He is—His character, and for what He has done—His actions. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that God wants us, unholy and sinful men and women, to worship Him and be His people. As worshipping our great God becomes more and more a central part of our lives, we will lead others to worship Him as well.

Plan to improve your vision this year so it is 20/20. Not with glasses but by seeing God in a new light. Do what God wants you to do by thanking Him, trusting Him, and worshipping Him. In this way you will bless His holy name consistently, remembering all that He has done for you and all that He wants to do through you in 2020.

Luke 2:1-7

Rome ruled the world for centuries. Armies marched, kings were defeated, territory was taken, an empire was established, Caesars ruled, and taxes were demanded. At the beginning of the first century AD a Roman ruler, Caesar Augustus, passed a decree that a census be taken of all who lived in the Roman world. This meant that everyone under Caesar’s rule had to return to their place of birth to be counted.  At that time a man named Joseph, engaged to a pregnant woman named Mary, lived in a town called Nazareth on the eastern edge of the Roman empire.  They were required to go to Bethlehem in Judea to be counted and eventually taxed for the empire’s benefit.  They were two common people who had no wealth, no power and who did not matter except for their value as taxpayers.  When they arrived in Bethlehem and found there was no room for them,  Mary gave birth to her son in an animal’s stall and laid Him in a manger.

No one knew, of course, that the One born in that manger was the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  No one knew that He would die for the sin of those who would take His life as well as for the sin of all who lived before and after Him, including we who live today in the twenty-first century.

It is at Christmas that we recall that the Light of the World was born into the kingdom of darkness in order to overcome the darkness of sin with the Light of God’s love.  No matter where we live, whether it be in Asia, Latin America, Europe, Africa or North America, whether in Arabia or the Islands of the sea, all of us are citizens of one of two Empires: the kingdom of darkness or the Kingdom of Light. Christmas is a time of remembering the grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness of Christ’s compassionate sacrifice, given to all who accept it.

Jesus, whose birth we celebrate, had an unknown birth in order to be offered as a well-known sacrifice so we do not have to pay the price for our sin.  If you know Him, praise Him and rejoice in His provision for you. Have joy because that’s what He wants you to have, as He said on the night of His arrest (John 15:11). Be thankful for all He has done for you and allow Him to bear fruit through you. Remember, He was born to die for the sin of all, from the beginning of time. Remember that He rejoices that we have trusted Him for what He has done for us.

And if you don’t know Him, now is the time to accept all He has done for you, for dying for your sin, for offering forgiveness for your disobedience, and for providing eternal life.

Christmas is a constant celebration of our deliverance from sin to the anticipation of eternity.  Rejoice with Him for what He has done for you and make Christmas your way of life.

Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken

Many of my wilderness experiences have been self-imposed. They grew out of drivenness within me; the fruit of selfish ambition, fear, and the anger that created unmet needs in my heart. And those needs should never have been met. That means that many of my wilderness experiences could have been avoided if only . . .

If only I were aware of my drivenness; if only I had realized my ambition—pursued, sincerely I believe in the name of Jesus—was mixed with the slag of my glory even as I sought His glory; if only I had understood that my fear actually was pride and my anger was anger. I carried inner anger without even knowing what it was. I gradually came to understand that these feelings within me were harmful and that prayer alone could bring me release. By then I had been a pastor for probably four or five years and realized I needed help from other leaders to be free. That’s when I asked the elders of our church to meet with me early every Sunday morning to pray because that’s how I gained some deliverance along the way.

So it was that I entered into burnout and edged toward depression for a period of time early in my pastorate. So it was that I struggled with comparison and competition and feelings of failure because I wasn’t as good as others or I hadn’t reached the standard of success I set for myself. Now I realize that that standard of success was self-imposed and not from God or anyone else; now I realize that it doesn’t make any difference whether I’m as good as others; now I realize that those wilderness experiences were self-imposed and unnecessary.

I don’t like to project myself on other leaders, but, as I have talked about these concerns in cultures all over the world, I have found many fellow leaders who identify with me because they’re in the same self-imposed wilderness. I’m just a little bit ahead of them. As I talk about these wilderness experiences, I find them responding, recognizing their own struggles and seeking freedom. So what can leaders do when they find themselves in the self-imposed wilderness?

Find the joy of the wilderness, the rugged beauty, the blooming wild flowers, the cooling shade, and the refreshing oases of flowing, refreshing water. How?

1. Stop denying the truth about you and fall on your face before God in prayer, acknowledging that virtually everything you blame on others comes from you.
2. Read the Bible in the light of your responsibility and God’s grace and make Christ your life, not only the One you talk about, but the One you depend on to live.
3. Find someone you can talk with honestly and tell him/her the truth about you and listen to what you hear back no matter how much it hurts, even if you must travel hours and hours to get to him.

While many, probably most, of my wilderness experiences have been self-imposed and unnecessary, they have been critical to my growth as a man, my sensitivity as a husband and a father, and my impact as a leader. I wish I could have avoided them, but I couldn’t make it without them. So, I encourage you to keep on wandering in your wilderness. Sooner or later you’ll get to an oasis of refreshing rest. But after you’re there a while, you’ll start over again with another season in the wilderness—and that will be the best place you can be if you want to be God’s kind of leader.