The New Testament teaches us that we are not to “make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son” (Heb. 12:5-6, NIV). God, as our loving Father, confronts us with our sin and convicts us of it in order to get us to confess. Because He knows if we do not confess and correct it, our misery will envelop us and we will live life at a very low level in comparison with the life He created for us.
If you and I resist confessing our sin when God brings it to our attention through our own Bible reading or through a spouse or a child or a friend or a pastor or just our own consciences, we harden our hearts. And a hardened heart is an impenetrable barrier in our relationship with God, in our enjoyment of His blessings, in our emotional and spiritual security, and in our eternal reward. A hardened heart is the core of a miserable life.
Have you been making fruit-bearing more complicated and difficult than it is? Have you worn yourself out until you are discouraged over the lack of fruitfulness in your own service and resentful of others for the fruitfulness in theirs? Then I have wonderful news for you! You can relax! Not only are you freed from trying hard to bear fruit, you are freed from trying at all! That’s the secret!
As simplistic as it may sound, fruit is produced on a branch that is attached to a vine. Jesus clearly told His disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (John 15:5, NIV). So there is no guesswork about our position in His illustration. For a branch to have fruit-bearing potential, it must be alive. Since it has no life of its own, it must be organically attached to the vine so that the sap, or life, of the vine flows up through the trunk and into the branch. Fruit-bearing is all about being connected to the Vine. The branch bears the fruit, it doesn’t produce the fruit.
Noah was totally helpless to change his situation. There was nothing he could do except to stay on the ark and tend to the needs of his family and those of the animals until God in some way brought deliverance. He had to keep his faith in God while simply waiting out the silence that followed the storm.
Although He had been silent, God had not forgotten Noah. In fact, since Noah and his family were the only living persons on the face of the earth, we can be sure they had God’s total, undivided attention every moment.
Do you think God’s silence in your life means He has forgotten you? Oh, no! God says He has engraved your name on the palms of His hands. He says that a mother could forget her nursing baby at mealtime before He could forget you! You are in God’s heart and on His mind every moment. He is fully informed of your circumstances and will bring about change when He knows the time is right.
For God so loved you that He gave His Son, His only Son, the Son Whom He loved – He gave heaven’s most precious Treasure – He gave everything He had – in order to offer you eternal life.
Do you doubt the love of God? Why? Because of the bad things that He allows to happen to good people? Because of the unfairness and injustice and unkindness and misery and suffering and pain and cruelty of life? Some questions we won’t have answers for until we get to heaven. But one thing we can know for sure is that God loves you and me. How do we know that? We know it by just looking at the cross where He proved His love for the world that mocks Him and ignores Him and despises Him and scorns Him and rejects Him.
We look at the cross and see “I love you” written in red – the red of Christ’s blood.
Our world is looking for love. As human beings, we need to love and be loved. But we’re looking in all the wrong places. We look for it from a parent,
from a child,
from a spouse,
from a friend,
But our parents grow old and die,
our children grow up and live their own lives,
our spouses are too busy or too tired,
our friends are superficial or selfish.
Who can truly understand the need of the human heart? Who can meet the need of our hearts? Where is love found?
Love is found in the heart of God.
