jesusisgod316.blogspot.com
Hear the devotional here: https://bit.ly/3dpbRY0
1 I'll sing a ballad to the one I love, a love ballad about his vineyard: The one I love had a vineyard, a fine, well-placed vineyard. 2 He hoed the soil and pulled the weeds, and planted the very best vines. He built a lookout, built a winepress, a vineyard to be proud of. He looked for a vintage yield of grapes, but for all his pains he got junk grapes. 3 "Now listen to what I'm telling you, you who live in Jerusalem and Judah. What do you think is going on between me and my vineyard? 4 Can you think of anything I could have done to my vineyard that I didn't do? When I expected good grapes, why did I get bitter grapes? 5 "Well now, let me tell you what I'll do to my vineyard: I'll tear down its fence and let it go to ruin. I'll knock down the gate and let it be trampled. 6 I'll turn it into a patch of weeds, untended, uncared for - thistles and thorns will take over. I'll give orders to the clouds: 'Don't rain on that vineyard, ever!'" 7 Do you get it? The vineyard of God-of-the-Angel-Armies is the country of Israel. All the men and women of Judah are the garden he was so proud of. He looked for a crop of justice and saw them murdering each other. He looked for a harvest of righteousness and heard only the moans of victims. You Who Call Evil Good and Good Evil. (Isaiah 5:1-7 The Message Bible)
A most blessed of Wednesdays to you, dear Friend; may the joys of the Lord be your strength today and all days is my prayer for you. I pray the Lord's blessing of protection and peace on you and on all whom you hold dear. Pray for one another. Pray for your needs. Pray for the needs of your community and for the world.
I have a brown thumb. And I mean that in the sense that it is not a green thumb as some people have. People with green thumbs are those known for being able to grow and help plants and all sorts of vegetation thrive. I have quite the opposite effect. I can't explain it; I just accept it. Nellie tired of giving me plants for my office during my active years of ministry, and bought me a cactus plant made of cloth, set in a tradition clay pot. The only thing I could do to help my cactus thrive was to dust it from time to time. You know the people I'm talking about; they can visit a parsonage and take a cutting of a nice bloom, take it home under the excuse that we're a connectional church thus helping themselves, and soon they have the same, identical plant blooming in a wonderful way. To my credit I once took some watermelon seeds and grew a watermelon not quite the size of a basketball. That was it, and that was when I was a child in Kingsville, Texas. If one plants a garden, we want a place filled with life, and blooms of flowers or fruits or vegetables. Imagine one who plants a vineyard wanting grapes to grow, only to find that all his or her efforts of planting, pruning, weeding, watering, etc., yields only junk grapes. What good do junk grapes serve? I mean, besides the annoying reminder of failure.
This was the prophetic word from the prophet Isaiah that came in the form of a ballad, a love ballad about a certain vineyard that, as described above, had produced a crop of junk grapes. What the vineyard owner desired was not received. The owner decides the best thing to do is to tear down the fence, remove the gate, and just let the ground be trambled by whomever desires to walk on it; the end will be a garden, to borrow the word, of weeds. A garden of untended, unwatered, uncared for, thistles, thorns, and stickers. And this garden, ladies and gentlemen, is the nation of Israel, and the owner is God, and God is disappointed in that with all the love, care, attention, and everything else He has shown them, they are weeds. The garden of justice and love that God desired, has become a place of murder, where people murder each other; the harvest of righteousness has become a concert of agony and pain. God sees that the people can be known as those who call evil good, and good evil. Such a sad state that begs the question, in our daily life, in our walk with the Lord, are we grapes, or weeds?
Among the many fruits that I personally enjoy, nothing beats a delicious grape! This is the time of year when if you can find a grape whose shape is elongated, those tend to be much sweeter than the perfectly round ones. Nothing frustrates me more than to buy a bag of nonsweet or even sour grapes. A nice, juicy, sweet grape is what God intended, anything less, well, let's just say it missed the mark. Like us. When God made you, what did God want from you? Your love and full focus on God, of course. Your service and compassion to others, and you can fill in the rest through prayer, worship, sharing and giving. And what does God have so far in you? And me? Sometimes not the sweetest of grapes, I'm afraid; a little less than sweet, a skin tougher than intended and instead of being sweet on the taste buds, we fall short and miss the mark. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
PRAYER: Loving Father, for the gift of life we are thankful. For the joy of living with the ups and lows, we are also thankful. Forgive us for the times we have been more like ragweed than juicy grapes; but we know that You are quicker to forgive than we are to change. Bless us to be a blessing; in Christ Jesus we pray, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord! Your call to action: Be the sweetest "grape" you can to those who seem dipped in vinegar today!
Receive my love and blessings of joy,
Pastor Eradio Valverde, Jr.
