BRVC Vision 2016: Deeper and More
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
“The More is in the Deeper.” That’s my new motto for 2016.
Over the past couple of months I have been praying and asking God for His priorities for my life and the life of our church in this new year.
As I prayed, the Lord kept directing me towards a place I wasn’t expecting: my inner life. I kept sensing His magnifying glass being placed over my heart. He was calling me to follow him into the deeper places of my mind and spirit, a quiet place where we would hang out together.
Honestly it was scary to me at first. What will I find there? Am I a big fake? Will I discover lots of frantic and busy activity on the outside of my life, but no real depth or strength on the inside? Who am I really? Why do I do the things I do? What are my true motives for what I do?
I kept asking myself these questions. As I took these questions to the Father in prayer, I kept sensing peace and rest. This was the right path. God was leading me down this road.
As I followed the bread crumbs of His Spirit, I started getting a new sense of excitement and adventure. There was treasure down there beneath the surface. There were great riches in the Word and in the Spirit if I would follow Jesus on a journey inward.
This is the essence of what I shared with our church on Sunday. I shared that the Vision for BRVC in 2016 was two words: DEEPER and MORE. Beth did a great job of sharing how to make going deeper more personal and practical.
I would like every one of our leaders and members to take time to listen to the message that Beth and I shared on Sunday. Click HERE to listen to that message. Click on the sermon entitled: “Vision Sunday 2016.” Listen to it as many times as needed to hear the Spirit’s voice on what God wants you to hear.
Our focus for 2016 is to grow in abiding, or remaining, daily in Jesus. Jesus is the life-giving Vine of the Kingdom. We will be studying John 15 in detail. Our sermon series this year will all be focused on this great theme: Deeper and More.
It is as if God is saying, “Go below the ground level of your life. Dig down deeper this year and discover the riches, the sap, the life that is there in intimate communion with Me.” God is saying to us, “The journey this year is the journey down into the depth of God’s heart and character.”
Our focus will be God Himself. Our challenge is to learn how to remain in Him through three main avenues: Prayer, Worship and the Word. We want to get to know God better and better. We want to spend more and more time in the secret place, in the quietness of intimate union with Him.
From this process, fruit WILL be produced. Sweet fruit will come forth. More and sweeter fruit will emerge naturally. Not as a result of planning and effort, but as an OVERFLOW of a river that has been released in our inner being. John 7:8 says,
“Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
We were not meant to create any rivers or create any fruit. Our role is to grow in intimacy and let the river will come through us from the presence of the Lord. The fruit will flow from the “sap” of Jesus’ life that fills us from being with Him.
Bearing fruit with no striving; this is our calling as sons and daughters of God. I love the sound of that. I don’t need more to do, but my heart desires deeper and greater fruit to flow from my life.
Please join me this year in going deeper in your relationship with God. Join me as we start our new sermon series this week: Knowing God–Relating to the Almighty. Would you consider starting a small group to study the nature and character of God? Maybe you could join together with others to pray and ask God to take you deeper into His heart.
Finally I ask you to pray long and deep for every member of Blue Ridge Vineyard. I believe 2016 is a year of great blessing and growth for our church. My hope and prayer is that those blessings will flow from a place of rest.
We don’t need to do more. We need to do more of the things that lead to abiding. Finding time for abiding will mean doing less of others things. It will mean the pruning of wasteful things that are not bearing any fruit. More on this in my next blog next week.
Happy New Year Everyone! Deeper and More. Let’s go deep this year and watch great things unfold!
Pastor Tom