Remain in the Vine

I read Isaiah 5 and 6 yesterday. I hadn't realized that God referred to Israel as a vineyard in the Old Testament. He talks in these chapters about how He planted the vineyard and carefully tended it, but it did not produce a good crop. The passage states that God had done all He could for the the vineyard but when He looked for good grapes it yielded only bad. God had been so patient with His people. He promised them good if they would only follow His decrees and trust Him (Deuteronomy 30:16) Time after time they disobeyed, but then they would cry to Him and He would forgive their sins and rescue them from whatever calamity they had gotten themselves into. It seems like it wouldn't be long, though, before they were back to wallowing in the pit of sinfulness, following in the ways of their idolatrous neighbors. Finally it came to the point that God had to remove the hedge of protection around His vineyard and uproot its vines. He allowed His people to be carried into exile by their enemies and their land to be destroyed. Why was it so hard for God to get the attention of His people? If they had listened to Him and obeyed and trusted, they would have lived in peace in the land He promised on oath to Abraham. However, they never stopped leaning on their own understanding. In Romans 1:18-32, the Bible talks about those who knew God, but who neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him. Verses 22-25 say, "Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen." God had rescued and blessed His people over and over and they still kept falling away into idol worship. The thought recently came to me that idol worship is really worship of self. We want to do our own thing instead of following God, so we create a "manageable deity" to make ourselves feel better about our sinful choices. I'm sure that most of us don't have a carved idol that we bow to, but don't we so often bow at the altar of self-gratification in one way or another? When I think of God's people being carried away(literally) by their enemies, I'm reminded of the verses in James 1:13-15 "When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." How can we keep from being dragged away and enticed by our lusts? We must remain in the vine. John chapter 15 gives us the picture of Jesus as the vine and His people as the branches. Just as in the passage in Isaiah, God is the gardener or vinedresser. Verse 4 says, "Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine." Verses 9-11 state, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." So, allowing ourselves to be carried away by our sinful desires leads to death, but remaining in the vine by obeying God's commands brings complete joy. God loves us so much and His commands are not to steal our joy as the devil would have us believe. They are to give us a joyful, abundant life, even during times of struggle and pain. Father, help us to remain in the vine so that we won't be carried away by our enemy. Show us where we bow at the altar of self and help us to be like Jesus, who humbled Himself even to death on a cross. Let the only exaltation that we seek be that You would one day tell us, "well done, good and faithful servant."