“I am the vine and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I him bears much fruit, for without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he has cast out as a Branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this, my father is glorified, that you very much fruit; so you will be my disciples.” (John 15:5 – 8).

I was in the garden a few weeks ago, burning rubbish in our garden incinerator in an enclosed area that used to be a chicken run. I had a hose pipe to hand in case any sparks jumped from the fire, and was directing it onto the roots of an apple tree on the other side of the enclosed area so that the water was doing something useful. I felt the Lord spoke to me quite clearly as I stepped back, away from the smoke for a moment. He said, “Water what is fruitful, burn what is dead.“ I took the above picture as a reminder to myself.

This is a time of transition. We have heard many times, and we know, that God is doing a new thing. So why do we persist in carrying on with our old ways? I wrote about making disciples in my last post. Jesus says that discipleship is this: abide in Him and let his words abide in us. What does this mean? I think it’s quite simple: Walk with him and do what he says. Forty years ago, before cars were computers on wheels, I rebuilt a car engine (a morris minor, if you remember them) from a DIY manual. You read the information and did what it said. It was tried and tested, and – unless you misread the instructions – it worked. For too long, we’ve been doing it ourselves in the church: repeating strategies that worked in a previous era in the hope that they will work for us today. But it’s time we threw away and burnt our DIY manuals and let Him build His church, because what He is doing today is not the same as it was 40 years ago.

I believe the Lord says:
 “You cry out to me to pour out my spirit and bring my anointing to what you do. But I will not pour my water on that which is cut off from me. I will not water your DIY efforts. Where is there life and growth in your church? Where is there life and growth in your family, in your marriage? Cry out to me for those areas, and I will water them. I will even water one little seedling, I will water a tree that only bears a single fruit. If it is growing, I will water it. Where there is love, I will water it. But I will not water a pile of dead branches, however big and impressive it is, however hard you’ve worked to assemble the pile, and however long it’s been there.

So burn what is dead, abide in me, listen for my word and do what I say. And I will watch over my word to perform it, and I will water what grows when my word springs forth through your obedience.”