May 11^th – Weeks 1 & 2

Week 1 – Review

• Father is the Gardner
• Settled Soul: Tenaciously abiding with Someone you can trust
• God of Truth
• We cannot trust our own heart in of itself
• Jesus is the true grapevine
• Believers are the branches
• No root; No fruit
• Without Christ we are all wild vines
• Jesus our absolute source: thus fruit not bitter but sweet & nourishing
• Father is a first hands-on Gardner; divine Gardner
• Father tends to us tenderly
• Father transforms us
• Father prunes us
• Tenaciously abiding branches are one that bear fruit
• Father’s plan: Be fruitful & not barren
• Primary meaning in Greek of Cut-off: Lift up, Elevate, Lift from the ground
• Lift toward restoration
• Type of branches: On the ground/subject to diseases of the world; Productive fruitful; Energy draining called “Suckers”
• Settled Souls trusts Father’s tender & loving pruning
• Believers have been purified the moment they receive Christ
• Fruitfulness isn’t about attainment through perfection & striving to prove ourselves worthy but Attachment to the Vine (Jesus)

Week 2 – Review

• Remain in Christ & He will Remain in you
• Tenacious Abiding: 6 Practices-
  • We think about Jesus
  • We talk to Jesus
  • We talk about Jesus
  • We love Jesus and let Him love us
  • We trust Jesus and believe what He tells us
  • We engage meaningfully with others who love Jesus
• Branch cannot produce fruit if we are severed from the Vine
• Branch cannot be fruitful unless “You remain in me.”
• No one can separate us from Christ’s love
• “Those who remain in me and I in them will produce much fruit.”
• “Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.”
• Thrown aside: No longer useful/fruitful/missing out on the joy of fulfilling purpose
• Withered: Without attachment to a life-giving source
• Gathered by others for their own purposes: Often at the whim of others, used for someone else’s selfish needs.
• Burned: These disconnected branches are consumed, stripped by fire of strength, purpose, and form.
• I am my Beloved’s and He is mine.”
• I am _________________(Your Name), the one Jesus loves!
• Jesus is reliable therefore we trust Him
• We engage meaningfully with other who love Jesus

May 18^th – Week 3

Week 3 – Review

• Full Access
• “Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. We’ve been invited… to make a home within the majestic rooms of God’s heart. He welcomes us not just as temporary guests, but as permanent residents who settle their souls into the presence of Jesus.”
• “He doesn’t require that we stay on roped-off carpet runners, limited to what we can see but never touch of His dazzling goodness.
  Words matter!

• “His Words take root and remain in us:
  • As we read the words of Jesus
  • When we commit His words to memory
  • When we sing His words
  • When we meditate on His words
  • When we hear His words expounded through sermons, podcasts, and books;
  • When we remind one another of the words of Jesus
  • When we act in obedience to the words of Jesus”
• “The words of Jesus recalibrate [our] thoughts and emotions when the troubles of life leave [us] off-kilter. They remind [us that we are] not alone and true shelter is always available as [we] remain in Jesus.”
• Words of Jesus that is sometimes unsettling to us:
  • Forgive & forgive…
  • Love our enemies
  • Refuse to trust in riches
  • Take up our cross
  • Serve those that you lead
  • Take the lowest seat of recognition at the table
  • Turn the other cheek…
• Replace our own self-talk with Jesus’ words
• The condition of having full access is tenacious abiding.
• Living fully settled souls in Christ gives us access to everything God can do!
• By abiding we can bear much fruit & we can reflect Father’s greatness & make much of Him!
• Father loves us “…the messy, straining, noncompliant ones who get ourselves into so much trouble…” Such a lopsided love!
• Father never tires of tending to us little branches.
• Remain in His love
• “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, booking for someone to devour.”
• “If you’re going to shelter in place, make sure it’s the right place. Stay home, stay healthy. Shelter in Jesus.

May 25^th – Week 4

Week 4 – Review

• Living Loved
• Devoted relationship requires intentional effort and constant maintenance.
• Four words that help us do a better job of loving and living loved:
  • Give
  • Forgive
  • Get
  • Forget
• Actions and choices we make everyday affect the quality of our relationships
  Because of love there are some things we always should try to do and other things we should agree to never do.

• When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love
• Commandments from Jesus:
  • Not prison bars to cage us
  • Guardrails to keep us from going over the cliff, falling away from His love.
• Because Jesus loves us so much and wants us to reach His paradise, He has set up guardrail in the form of commands and principles designed to keep us safe and moving forward in His love
• You keep His mandates and they keep you.
• Sure, if you choose , you can crash through the guardrails by willfully disobeying the directives of Jesus.
• Yes, there will still be mercy waiting at the bottom of the ravine.
• He is faithful to pull us out of self-destruction!
• Disobedience causes us to miss out on blessings.
• God blesses obedience and our obedience commands the blessings of God!
• Analogy of Zip-lining: it’s just that first big step off the platform that’s the hardest then you’ll be soaring!
• Jesus took the first step & went first for you when it comes to obedience.
• Jesus intentionally restrained Himself from exercising His divine rights as God and from using the unlimited power at His disposal to advance a human agenda.
• Jesus wasn’t a legalist, just following rules for the rules’ sake or to prove Himself worthy of the Father’s love.
• We need to be aware of our human tendency toward legalism, which strips obedience of its most essential motivation: love.
• Legalism focuses on God’s laws more than relationship with God.
• Legalism adds human rules to divine laws and treats them as divine.
• On the other hand, the motivation behind the kind of obedience Jesus modeled is to express love for the Father and trust in His goodness.
• I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
• Joy is the sign and the reward of those who lavish extravagant daily time on Jesus.
• This joy is not necessarily emotion, but the deep rooted and sustained exuberance of being swept up into the dance of the God of mission.
• This tells us God is up to something big and beautiful in this broken world and obedience lets us be a part of it. This results in a joy deeper than emotions, a delight not dependent upon perfect circumstances.
• 2 Corinthians 6:10: “As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” These precious words teach us how the joy of Christ can overrule the sorrow of the world & can make us sing even while we weep.
• Just be ready for joy to be a part of the ride
• This is my commandment: love each other in the same way I have loved you.
• Living loved is to live lovingly.
• Jesus longs for us, takes pleasure in us, and wishes us well.
• How can we do the same?
• We’re wrapped in the love of a God who longs for us, takes pleasure in us, and wishes us well. In turn, we wrap others in that same kind of love.
• We don’t always know the difference between “to” and “for.”
• Our flesh tends to go to the thought that God does things “to” us rather than “for” us.
• The knowledge of our own lawbreaking nature–makes it hard for us to look grace in the eye.
• We’re often suspicious of both divine and human favor because our own unworthiness taints our ability to trust.
• When we mix up our “to’s” and our “for’s,” we get lost, turned around in the fog of disheartening circumstances that seem to point away from God’s goodness, not toward it.
• God is doing great things “for” you!

June 1^st – Week 5

Week 5 – Review

• Friended by Jesus
• Jesus brought Father God a little lower; we get to see God at eye level!
• There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
• So, when it comes to you and me, what does it look like to love in a sacrificial way like Jesus did?
• Throughout human history sountless heroes have given their lives on behalf of others.
• While you can die only once physically, there are hundreds, even thousands of opportunities to “lay down your life” for your friends in other ways.
  • Choose to forgive
  • Do the hard work of reconciliation
  • Kill our pride & step out of our personal pity party
• Jesus made this pride-killing choice to forgive even more of a laying-down-your-life thing when He told us to do it again and again and again.
• Earth is Forgiveness School.
• Jesus said if we want to follow Him, we must give up our own way.
• To live dying for Jesus or to die living for Jesus–either way, we win.
• You are My friends if you do what I command.
• No other kind of friendship on the planet, even the best one, has the right to make absolute obedience the condition of that relationship.
• Only Jesus fits that description.
• Obedience also opens the door to a true friendship with Jesus in which we are His highly regarded associates, the recipients of His affection.
• True friendship requires respectful honesty.
• God has big shoulders and can handle our confusion and raw emotions.
• Faux relationship: Matthew 15:8 “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

June 8^th – Week 6

Week 6 – Review

• Out on a Limb
• But here’s the thing to remember: All the fruit we’ll ever bear happens out on a limb of one kind or another…
• You didn’t choose me, I chose you. John 15:16
• Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.
• When it comes to our relationship with Jesus, we weren’t the first to choose Him— He chose us.
• He was despised and rejected – a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Isaiah 53:3
• We are in Christ, not because we hold Him but because He holds us.
• There’s nothing sweeter on the menu of life than to choose the One who has already chosen us – to hold on fiercely to the One who holds us faithfully.
• Jesus picked us out for Himself, He selected us to be His tenaciously abiding branches who bear the fruit of that attachment.
• She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.
• We begin beloved … This reality seeps out of my soul quickly. Days can pass in a bluster of busyness, impatience, and distraction. I work to build my own blessedness, to strive for a self-made belovedness. But each morning in those first tender moments – in simply being God’s smelly, sleepy beloved – I again receive grace, life and faith as a gift. Grace is a mystery and the joyful scandal of the universe.
• I chose you also means:
  • I know you.
  • I hear you.
  • I see you.
  • I want you.
  • I forgive you.
  • I protect you.
  • I’m for you.
  • I’m with you.
  • I love you.
• Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty… The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice.
• I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit. John 15:16
• The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and the one who is wise saves lives. Proverbs 11:30
• They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. Psalm 1:3
• Jesus is our “trunk” and we’re His branches.
• As branches, we’re to remain attached to our “trunk”, the Vine, Jesus but our arms are to go outward where we’ll bear fruit and literally change the poisonous atmosphere around us that has been tainted by sin and hopelessness.
• Disciples are chosen, in love, for mission.
• The capacity to give what our “go appointment” asks of us – to fulfill the mission God has chosen us for – increases with every new yes to Jesus.
• We bring the yes. He brings the rest.
• So that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name… this offer comes in the context of living as a consistently abiding and obedient branch who undergoes regular pruning yet remains firmly in Jesus’ love, ready to go out and bear fruit for Him.
• The harmony of our will with His will is one of the chief elements of our fellowship with Him.
• Love will assimilate the commands into your inmost being as food from heaven. They will no longer come to you as a law standing outside and against you, but as the living power that has transformed your will into perfect harmony with all your Lord requires.
• Enough faith to pray is enough faith.
• When it comes to prayer, how He answers and when He answers are up to God.
• With each tear, each whispered prayer, each desperate heart cry for the restoration of barren spiritual landscapes, I’m planting a seed. One…more…seed.
• Don’t give up. God hears us, and prayer by prayer, the unseen power of His life-giving grace is doing its work.
• The Lord is pleased with your caring and concern, but the burden is His to carry.
• This is my command: Love each other. John 15:17
• Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8.
• You can give without loving but you cannot love without giving.
• I’m never expected to be the source of unlimited love-my role is to be an open conduit, always connected to the unending Source of love, Jesus.
• The love of God toward you is like the Amazon River flowing down to water a single daisy.
• The list of things that can separate you from god’s love is blank. The list of things that cannot separate you from God’s love is l-o-n-g and all-inclusive.