10/1/12. Isaiah 5:1-7. MY LOVED ONE HAD A VINEYARD – devotional
10/1/12. Isaiah 5:1-7. MY LOVED ONE HAD A VINEYARD – devotional
Isaiah 5:1-7
Key Verse: 5:4
Kevin Jesmer NIU UBF Monday, October 1, 2012
“What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”
Dear Lord heavenly Father, thank you so much opening my mind and my heart up to so many possibilities, especially in regards to ministry. There are so many opportunities right under our noses. Please help us to go through the open doors that you are opening. Thank you for helping my kids to make friends with other Christian kids. I pray that you may help us to be a source of blessing to the people of KBC. Work through us to raise disciples of Jesus among NIU students and the people of DeKalb and Sycamore. Please grant me one word of God through this passage. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!
Part 1: What More Could Have Been Done? (1-4a).
Verses 1-4a, “I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. 2 He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. 3 “Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. 4 What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?…”
God is like the owner of a vineyard. He cared for his vineyard and did everything possible for it to bear the best fruit. He used the choicest vines, cleared the soil and protected it with a watchtower. He did this with the hope that his vineyard would bear the fruit of his love and care. God hoped that his people would become good grapes, growing in love for God and in his perfect image. Indeed, there is nothing more God could have done.
God does provide everything we need for our vineyard. God has given me a vineyard. My vineyard is my family, my working place, DeKalb and Sycamore, and NIU. My vineyard is my marriage and my own heart. I am even praying for the First Nations Peoples’ of Canada. God has provided everything for my vineyard for me to bear abundant and good fruit. He has given me Jesus, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, a career, a good wage, a believing wife, believing children, a supportive body of Christians, a stable home and equipment, physical strength, good health. The list goes on and on. What else could God give that he hasn’t already given? He has given it all. (I could say, more money and my own private jet and helicopter and a huge dorm building on campus and a PhD in Christian missions. Just kidding.) Seriously folks, God is has blessed my vineyard and now he wants me to simply bear much fruit in it.
And God is bearing fruit. But he is doing it in his way and in his time. He is helping me to love doing daily devotionals and to study spiritual things. He is helping me and Julie to come together on the same page spiritually. He is helping all of my kids to believe. And they are even making friends with other Christian kids. He is using me to find open doors to send missionaries to the First Nations Peoples’ of Canada. We could be a source of blessing and inspiration to a body of believers. I am coming out of a deep depression and into the joy and the peace of Jesus. There is inner fruit being born. As is also outer fruit. There are big changes in Steve’s heart. Greg is on fire for the Lord. Rob is starting to come alive spiritually. Thank you Lord, for helping me to bear fruit in my vineyard.
Part 2: Bad Fruit (4b-7).
Verses 4b-7, “…When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? 5 Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. 6 I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.” 7 The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines he delighted in. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.”
God looked for good fruit in his vineyard but found only bad. He looked for justice and righteousness, but instead found evil. When the people of Israel, the garden of his delight, turned away from the Lord, they left his loving protection. They became subject to God’s judgment. When they didn’t recognize the Lord as their first love they were left without him and lived in misery.
I need to be very careful about tending the vineyard that God has given me. How easy it is to turn away from the Lord and let the weeds of sin and worldly desires and worries, etc come in and take over the vineyard that God has blessed. I was letting my despair and depression and anger and sorrow and critical attitudes take over my vineyard. It produces a home atmosphere that could not advertise the love and the grace and truth of Jesus. Jesus could not be revealed among us. We began to exist and get things done, that is all. We were waiting to move on and live our separate lives. I thank God who has intervened and has been helping us to cultivate our vineyard and make it bear fruit, (through various means.)
Prayer: Lord, thank you for providing all things for my vineyard. Bless me and my family to bear good fruit with all you have provided.
One Word: God gave me a vineyard
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