A Word from the Vine No. 550: Tending What You Actually Believe

Hey there, friends. You're listening to A Word from the Vine, and I'm Pastor Loren, coming to you from the Danish Countryside Chapel, just outside of Exira.

Out here among the vines, I've learned something that took me a while to really understand: a vine doesn't prove itself healthy by how it looks in April. It proves itself by what it produces come harvest.

That's exactly what Jesus was getting at with the chief priests and the two sons in Matthew 21. It's not the leaves. It's the fruit. It's not the words we say about our faith — it's what our faith actually does with our hands, our time, our Tuesdays.

I've come to believe the hardest question any of us can ask isn't "What do I believe?" It's "What have I actually done about what I believe?"

Because friends, you can have the healthiest-looking vine on the whole hillside and still bear nothing come fall. And you can have a scraggly, unimpressive-looking vine that quietly produces more fruit than anybody expected.

So here's your word from the vine today: stop asking what your faith sounds like, and start asking what it's growing.

This is Pastor Loren. Thanks for listening to A Word from the Vine. And remember — the Gospel isn't just something we believe. It's something we live.