January 19

“I could never, in the wildest reaches of even my writer’s imagination, conceive of Jesus Christ bringing fears down upon someone.”  Eugenia Price, S.P.S., 1/19

This was Eugenia’s response as a new Christian to Isaiah 66:4:  “I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I spake, they did not hear:  but they did evil before mine eyes, and chose that in which I delighted not.”  But then the Lord opened up her mind to understand that He had designed our minds to function this way.  If we choose to do evil the consequence will be fears and delusions.  This makes such perfect sense to me that I do not understand why I didn’t see this for myself long ago.  Bill Gillham has helped me to understand the ways in which the power of sin controls my thoughts if I do not believe I am a sanctified, and therefore a holy creature.  The sin that I do commit is the direct result of the power of sin to cloud this issue for me.  What some believers do not seem to realize, and I was one of these, is that sin is separation from God.  Once we are reconciled with God through Jesus Christ, our missteps are merely that--we’ve stepped out of God’s will for us.  The Holy Spirit’s role is to immediately convict us of this.  Our role is to obey--and we have the ability to do so because of the Holy Spirit in us.  If we do not obey, it is a blatant attempt to wrest control of our lives from God’s Hands--rebellion--and this is sin.  This our loving Father will immediately begin to address by pruning our unruly branches!  My heart breaks when I think of those times in my own life--not the times that I rebelled and God pruned, but the times I miss-stepped and then condemned myself.  Because I condemned myself I did not seek God’s help--I struck out on my own to try and tidy things up before I went to Him little understanding I was headed down the rebellion path.  When I couldn’t fix myself like I had hoped, God had to bring out His pruning shears to lop off those rebellious shoots and to prune the unwieldy branches so that my growth would once again come from the trunk of the vine.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and very branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”  John 15:1, 2