21 May 2024
The Richness of Recognizing
lori (0:1.006)
Welcome to Get Your Rear in Gear with Lori. I'm your host, Lori McAfee. I don't know where you're joining me from today or what you're doing, but I do want to thank you for taking your time to spend these next few moments with me. So as promised, we're going to walk through the refinery. We're going to explore the faith, beauty of God's Word, then transformative power of living truly across our lives.
So as we focus on the refinery today, we're going to talk about recognizing the true vine ⁓ with renewed faith. Jesus ⁓ says in John 15, that he is a true vine. And that ⁓ illustrates like a very profound truth about our relationship with him. So we're going to really break down like, what does that look like? And what is that? What does that truly ⁓ mean?
And ⁓ what's the significance in it? So God the Father, he's the, he's the vine dresser and God cultivates and cares for the vineyards. He prunes and nurtures the branches, promising that they bear fruit. ⁓ And ⁓ the beautiful reminder of God's constantly at work in our lives and shaping and molding us. And that reflects his glory.
And then Jesus, the son as the true bond, Jesus is the source of all of our spiritual life and vitality because as we know without him, we can truly do nothing. He is our connection to God and the provider of our spiritual nourishment that we all need. The believers for the branches ⁓ and.
When we abide in Jesus, we are promised to bear much fruit. Now that's more than just ⁓ marking off a checklist of a cross like behavior, but it's a deep ongoing relationship with him. And that word abide. I am kind of a nerd when it comes to some things. And so I wanted to know like a little bit more about what it means.
lori (2:27.470)
And the Greek translation is mino. And it means to remain, stay, dwell, continue. And hold on, listen, endure and await. The word abide is used 11 times in John 15. And abiding in Jesus, like I said, it's more than just living a life that is Christ -like. It's about growing into the knowledge of who He is and why He truly died for you.
So what does that mean to abide in Jesus? The true vine ⁓ remain in his presence. And the thing that, ⁓ that I love about the abiding is that that word encompasses the Christian life. So it's remaining in the presence in his presence, abiding in Jesus is constantly seeking him in our daily life. That's renewing our faith, recognizing the vine.
And this means we set aside time for prayer. We read scripture, we meditate on his word. He's the central focus of our lives ⁓ and allowing his word to influence our thoughts, our actions, behaviors, decisions. And when we say connected to him, that's through power y 'all. Prayer is our lifeline to God. It's how we communicate with him. It's how we build that personal relationship, that love relationship, if you will.
And it's how we get to know him ⁓ because through prayer we, I use the acronym pray, give him praise. I repent, I ask, and I yield ⁓ and a life of prayer. It keeps us connected to the Vaughan and it allows his life ⁓ to flow through us into every aspect of our being.
And when we dwell in his word...
lori (4:33.614)
It's that richness that is within us and dwelling in his word is that constant studying, reflecting, allowing the truth to penetrate our hearts and to transform our lives. There's so much beauty in that. But again, that comes from knowing him, getting to know him, knowing who he is, knowing the things about him.
continuing in his love, abiding in Jesus. It's like living in his love and extending that love to others. And I'll even go as far as adding that continuation of loving who he's created us to be. And Jesus even says in John 15 that ⁓ as...
The fathers love me so I love you. Abide in my love. You keep my commandments. You will abide in my love. Our relationship with Jesus is rooted in love. This love, ⁓ it really ⁓ compels us to want to obey his commandments and to love others as he loves them.
And that's called continuing in his love is called to a life of obedience.
lori (6:4.142)
And enduring through the challenges abiding in Jesus doesn't mean that we're not going to face trials and difficulties. But it does mean that we'll be able to endure it through his strength. And as we know, Philippians 4 13 says that we can do all things to cross who strengthens us. And the thing about it, that strength comes from Paul abiding in Jesus. And he speaks of that again, you know, in John.
to where he says Jesus, he's speaks of the pruning and process and God the fine dresser, he prunes the branches so that we can bear fruit. This pruning, it can be painful. And we're going to talk more about that later on in the next few podcasts, but it is necessary for our growth and our spiritual maturity. So.
The last one in that abiding is awaiting in his promises. And I say all the time that we have to trust the process and believe the promises. And sometimes those promises, it takes a little while for them to come, but that's the waiting part. And ⁓ we ⁓ trust in his promises and await their fulfillment. Jesus promises us abundant life, joy, peace.
when we remain in him and he remains in us. We have that assurance of his promises that are true and that they'll come to pass. This is a hope that sustained us and this gives us courage to to really pursue ⁓ and persevere in our faith. So one of the things that really hit me in this refining process ⁓ was
sitting in a Costa Rican airport ⁓ several, several years ago. And I was just talking with one of the other missionaries. And like I said, we were, I was on a mission trip. ⁓ I had in that, at that time I was actually teaching and the youth group was teaching women's Bible study. I was doing women's Bible study. I was attending church retreats. I was attending church every Sunday. I was there every Wednesday night. I was reading God's word, my prayer life.
lori (8:29.902)
did lack. I'm not going to lie about that, but there were all these things that were going on in my life and I was just checking off the boxes, but I knew something was missing and I knew that my faith was very frail ⁓ and I was talking to one of the other leaders about that and she was like, you know, sometimes we have what we're looking for. And I was like, that's it. ⁓ I totally have what I'm looking for in the true vine.
It's just I'm not recognizing him. I'm not seeing him. My faith is lacking. I've allowed life to cover everything up ⁓ about me. That has to do with my life and him and knowing who he is. And life has just really gotten heavy. But I wasn't abiding in him.
And I wasn't asking him to come into my life and to help me out. I wasn't praying to him like I should. Like I said, I was reading his word, but my life was not aligning with his word. I might've been doing all the things, but my heart and my mind were out of alignment.
And one of the things that I put in the refinery was Psalm 51 10 and it's a powerful restoration request and it says create in me a clean heart, God, and renew a right spirit within me. ⁓ This verse totally invites us to seek restoration and asking for God's forgiveness.
It's a renewal of our joy ⁓ and a heart of wisdom ⁓ that ⁓ fuels our restoration ⁓ to ⁓ divine favor. That is abundant life.
lori (10:33.582)
and abiding in Jesus that allows us to experience this renewal and restoration ⁓ so that we can live in the fullness of his promises. And that's like, if you imagine the vineyard and it being so well manicured and
though every single vine is just full of flourishing grapes and lusciousness and the fullness. That's a life that has been abiding in Jesus. There's the bright colors. There's the manicure. There's some that have fallen to the ground even.
There's some of the bunches of grapes that have been picked up and have been cleansed and ⁓ tethered back to the vine. You know, you know, true faith. It isn't about merely checking off these boxes of cross like actions, but it is about cultivating a deep, enduring love relationship with Jesus, the true vine.
and allowing his life ⁓ to flow through us because ⁓ he remains in us and we remain in him. And that produces much fruit that reflects his love and his grace. So as we come to close of this episode, I want to invite you to reflect on your relationship with Jesus.
Are you abiding in the true vine ⁓ and recognizing him with a renewed faith? And are you allowing his life to flow through you and produce fruit? So what that looks like is hit is he flows through us and we flow out to others.
lori (12:32.174)
So I want you to take time this week to reconnect with him and seek him and his guidance and his presence. And that means that we spend time with him getting to know who he really is. Y 'all, it does end at the cross.
Salvation is not the end. That's the justification. There's a sanctification process that goes beyond the cross. That is that reconciliation into the right relationship with God. So I want you to remember that recognizing the true vine, it's a renewed faith. It's a journey that grows deeper into the knowledge of who he is, why he died for us, just like I talked about.
and it stays ⁓ connected ⁓ and endures through challenges ⁓ and it's living the fullness of his promise. So I want to thank you for joining me today ⁓ on Get Your Rear in Gear with Lori. Until next time, ⁓ stay rooted in his grace and love and continue moving forward to be the person that he created you to be.
And if you've enjoyed this episode today, please subscribe, leave a review and share it with others. And for more insights and resources, you can visit my website and follow me on social media. Keep refining your faith and walking in His abundant life. May God bless each and every one of you as you live the refinery.
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