Note: This prayer meditation is first and foremost designed to be listened to, so we encourage you to listen to the audio as you read along.
WEEK 11 – The True Vine
For the next 10 minutes or so, we are going to turn our attention to God in prayer. He desires to meet with us today. To talk to us. To share His heart with us. Take a few deep breaths and say the following prayer:
God, You are here, now. And I am loved by You.
Now take a moment and pray this simple prayer that can be said in the span of a breath.
Jesus, You are the true vine.
As I read the following passage from Mark listen with the expectation that God is moving towards you, to speak to you, through these Spirit-inspired words today.
12 The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for it was not the season for figs. 14 He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” And his disciples heard it.
15 They came to Jerusalem, and he went into the temple and began to throw out those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, 16 and would not permit anyone to carry goods through the temple. 17 He was teaching them: “Is it not written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves!”
18 The chief priests and the scribes heard it and started looking for a way to kill him. For they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was astonished by his teaching.
While the Gospel of Mark might feel disjointed at first glance, the author has been intentionally weaving events together.
The cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple are no different. Jesus declares that the temple has been turned into a “den of thieves” rather than a “house of prayer”. There is no fruit where there should be. Jesus casts out those buying and selling for dishonest gain. This is the same word used elsewhere when talking about casting out demons. He identifies what does not belong and has the authority to tell it to leave with force.
Now consider this… if we are the temple of the Holy Spirit is there anything that is occupying your heart or mind that Jesus wants to drive out? That doesn’t belong there? If someone saw your life, your inner thoughts, the meditation of your heart, would they say that it’s a place dedicated to communion with God or to worry, wealth, or the desire for other things?
And we can’t fake it. Jesus sees past the leaves that make us appear fruitful, to the root, to the heart. And He wants to take back the space that is rightfully His so that our lives would bear much fruit.
Let’s pray.
God,
You said that Your house would be called a house of prayer for all nations.
Where You dwell is the place where heaven and earth meet.
Where You dwell is the place that brings flourishing and life to me and to others.
There is no one like You.
You dwell in me and my desire is that my life would bear much fruit.
I turn my life over to You. Will you prune me? Will You remove the things that don’t belong?
Confront my preferences, my idols, my worries, my fears, my guilt and shame.
Remove anything that keeps me from receiving life from You.
Anything that inhibits Your life from flowing through me.
Hear the Word of the Lord:
JOHN 15:1-7
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
AMEN.
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