THE LORD'S MESSAGES FOR THE CHURCH

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The Lord said:

At that time, you must sing about a fruitful vineyard. I, the Lord, will protect it and always keep it watered.
I will guard it day and night to keep it from harm.

I am no longer angry. But if it produces thorns, I will go to war against it and burn it to the ground. Yet if the vineyard depends on Me for protection, it will become My friend and be at peace with Me.

Isaiah 27:2-5 (CEV)

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

God’s word is always timely. Study it enough and you will come to see this statement as truth. No matter what we are going through, it seems that the scriptures will offer us direction, encouragement, and/or conviction just when we need it. Or better put, God’s word provides us when we need to hear when God’s knows we need it. The object of our life’s attention needs to always be God.

Looking at today’s scripture passage and this idea of a timely word, we find the Lord speaking to the church in Isaiah 27. It’s timely because today happens to be Sunday and I just have returned from first worshipping the Lord at the morning service and then teaching the word of God from the Book of Nehemiah to my Sunday School class. You have probably done the same and so given our common experiences from today at our respective places of worship, let’s see what the Lord has to say about church and what the church can expect to receive from the Lord they revere, respect, admire, and adore. Look again at these four verses from the Contemporary English Version of the bible which I believe offers us these words of God in a way that best allows us to understand what He intends for us to know:

The Lord said:

At that time, you must sing about a fruitful vineyard. I, the Lord, will protect it and always keep it watered. I will guard it day and night to keep it from harm.

I am no longer angry. But if it produces thorns, I will go to war against it and burn it to the ground. Yet if the vineyard depends on Me for protection, it will become My friend and be at peace with Me. vv. 2-5

The fruitful vineyard the Lord is speaking of here is none other than His church and His first command to us is to sing about it. These songs can be songs of deep veneration unto the Lord. They can also be songs of great thanksgiving and praise, honoring and glorifying the Lord for all that He has been, all that He is, and all He is yet to be in our lives. The Lord has given us the gift of music and song, Let us always lift up that song to the church and the one God who gave it to us.

Want to know what we should sing about?

These verses give us some outstanding topic matter.

First, we can sing songs of praise for God’s protection.

I, the Lord, will protect it. I will guard it day and night to keep it from harm.

The church is under attack today, attack from outside and attack from within. At times, these attacks can throw the church into confusion and turmoil but we should never forget who is in charge of the church, we should never forget who created and established the church, ruling over it as Master just as He is Master over all things. For the church has God with it, there to protect and guard it from harm, not just some of the time but all of the time, day or night. All we need do in the church is trust Him and to lift up our needs before Him when safety is needed. When we do, He will deliver because He promised He would and God always keeps His promises.

Next, we can sing songs of thanksgiving for the Lord’s caring nurture.

I, the Lord, will always keep it watered.

When the Apostle Paul was asked as to who was the greater apostle, he or Apollos, he offered this reply to the Corinthian church:

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.         1 Corinthians 3:6-9

Within the church, we are co-workers in God’s service tasked with carrying out His will and way. It’s not about you or me. It’s about Him, the One who makes everything grow including the church. A church that always places its focus on the Lord and fulfilling His purposes will be a church that is thriving, a fruitful vineyard continuously tended to and watered by the Lord.

We can also sing songs of gratitude for the Lord’s mercy and grace as well as songs asking for His forgiveness and pardon.

I am no longer angry. But if it produces thorns, I will go to war against it and burn it to the ground.

The church is to be partnered with the Lord in carrying out His purposes. It hasn’t always been that way. In fact, throughout the history of the Christian church, there have been countless times the church has failed the Lord who established and ordained it in the first place. And we haven’t learned enough from the mistakes of the past for even as I write this devotion today, I guarantee you there are churches out there running in opposition to God’s word and will.

For those churches, my prayer is that they change their ways and sing songs of repentance, asking for the Lord’s clemency and compassion. If they do, they might fully experience God’s deep mercy. If they don’t, then His word here is clear. He will burn the thorns produced by the church to the ground. The Lord will not stand for His church to produce anything but the fruit that brings others to their salvation through Jesus Christ. This is the heart of the church’s mission as given by Jesus in His Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). This is what God expects the church to be about.

Finally, the church can sing songs celebrating the peace that only comes from the Lord, a peace that transcends all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7).  

If the vineyard depends on Me for protection, it will become My friend and be at peace with Me.

Note here that one way for the church to be a friend of the Lord is to depend on Him for protection and I would extend this to simply say we are to depend on Him for everything. The church is not to rely on its own strength in carrying out the Lord’s will but rather fully seek His strength to do all things. The church is not to trust its own understanding or wisdom or discernment to do anything but instead trust in the Lord alone to lead, guide, and direct it toward what He wants it to do.

If the church wants to have peace with God then it needs to develop an unadulterated dependency on Him and Him alone. Period.

Come to me for protection day and night. I will keep you safe.

Come to me for direction and guidance and I will always keep you nourished and producing fruit.

Trust in Me and Me alone and I will never be at odds with you but instead will bring you My peace.

These are the Lord’s messages to the church from His word today. I pray we are all listening.

Thanks be to God for His timely word.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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