GOD’S WORD FOR APRIL 25 ~ ~ John 15:1 ~ ~ “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.”
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We are reading Andrew Murray’s classic book, “Abide in Christ.”
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“This is the Lord’s doing”
These words will lead the believer even further and higher, even to the depths of eternity.
“Whom He did predestinate, them He also called.” Romans 8:30). The calling in time is the manifestation of the purpose in eternity. Before the world was, God has fixed the eye of His sovereign love on you in the election of grace and chosen you in Christ. That you know yourself to be in Christ is the stepping-stone by which you rise to understand, in its full meaning, the word, “Of God I am in Christ Jesus.” With the prophet, your language will be:
“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn you.” (Jeremiah 31:3).
You will recognize your own salvation as part of that “mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself.” (Ephesians 1:9) and join with the whole body of believers in Christ as they say, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will. (Ephesians 1:11). Nothing will more exalt free grace and make man bow very low before it than this knowledge of the mystery “Of God……in Christ.”
It is easy to see what a mighty influence it must exert on the believer who seeks to abide in Christ. What a sure standing ground it gives him, as he rests his right to Christ and all His fullness on nothing less than the Father’s own purpose and work! We have thought of Christ as the Vine and the believer as the branch; let us not forget that other precious word:
“My Father is the husbandman.”
The Savior said, “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted up” (Matthew 15:13), but every branch grafted in by Him into the True Vine will never be plucked out of His hand. As it was the Father to whom Christ owed all He was and in whom he had all His strength and His life as the fine, so the believer owes his place and his security in Christ to the Father.
The same love and delight with which the Father watched over the beloved Son Himself, watch over every member of his body, everyone who is in Christ Jesus.