Live as God Made You to Be

We’ve got to be and do as God expects of us.

Now let me sing to my Well-beloved a song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard: My Well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; So He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.

3 “And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, please, between Me and My vineyard. 4 What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes? 5 And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. 6 I will lay it waste; It shall not be pruned or dug, but there shall come up briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression; For righteousness, but behold, a cry for help. Isaiah 5:1-7

God Himself prepared a vineyard for Himself, on a very fruitful hill. He planted it with the choicest vine. He did all that could be done for the vineyard, leaving nothing done. If you were a farmer, having adequately prepared your farm by digging out everything that could hinder a good harvest, provided water, planted the best seed, what more can you do but just sit and wait for the harvest? God did all He could for His vineyard, but it ended up bringing forth wild grapes, in the harvest times.

When the Lord was talking to me concerning us the church, He was helping me understand that He has done everything for us, to be fruitful. He gave us His Son (Jn. 3:16), His life, forgiveness of sins, freedom, liberty from curses, We were destined to perish as a result of the backgrounds we’d been born into and curses pronounced over our lives, some are supposed to have been even jailed because of the things we did, and so on. Here we stand, forgiven, free from curses, alive, healthy, and it can truly be seen that God is good. God did it all for us. These are things many have taken for granted, yet they’re God’s doings for us through Jesus Christ.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; 10 who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10

God has already gotten us from being just normal people, and made us His own special and chosen people. What else can God do for us?

and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. Colossians 2:10

We have been completed in Christ. Like Isaiah, I ask, what more could we have wanted Him to do for us? Since God has done all He could do for us, as He did for the children of Israel, His vineyard then, He expects our lives to bring Him glory. He expects us to glorify Him where we live, in our work, business, education, and basically all we do. God did not do all this for us to give a tithe, give Him service etc. It is all for His glory. If God would come to look for fruit and good grapes in our lives, would He find good fruit and grapes, or wild ones? These fruits are not for us, but for the world; it’s what the world is looking for, and God is counting on us for the world to be fed through us. God expects us to be fruitful.

God has done it all for us; from today, let’s produce fruit that can be eaten. Let’s produce fruit in our talk, how we walk, in our homes, basically fruits that can be eaten. Jesus was walking with His disciples, and saw a fig tree, from which He wanted to eat, being hungry. He found no fruit, and cursed the tree, and it did indeed die from the roots (Mk. 11:12-14,20-24).

Jesus has done everything: washed us, forgiven us, given us fellowships, a place of worship (church), people to help us walk with Him and be fruitful etc. We need to bear fruit. As the Bible tells us, God is the vinedresser, Jesus is the vine and we the branches. God has done His part, cultivating our hearts and lives, giving us life, cleansed us, given us hearts that are yielded to Him, hearts of flesh and so on, and expects to see nothing on the branches, but fruits. Imagine Jesus coming to us as He went to the fig tree, expecting to get fruits, what would He find? Will He find fruits, or just leaves?

Isaiah says in our main text that when God found wild grapes, He removed the hedge from vineyard. There is much danger when there is no hedge around the vineyard. By failing to produce fruit, we walk away from the hedge of God, His protection over our lives. As we do what He called us to do, we remain in His protection, within His hedge.

"No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. 17 Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17

We’ll avoid dryness and emptiness if we remain productive. We have been created anew in Christ; we need to live the new life we've been called to, working with the Spirit to produce that which He put in us, at salvation. Clinging to our old lives and ways of life will cause unproductivity in our lives. 

You are a new creation, in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). God has completed you in Christ. Live as God made you to be, fruitful at all times. 

Amen. 

   Pastor Mary Mugo

Sunday Service Teaching, Transformation Ministry, Ruiru.

Pastor Mary is a pastor at Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.