The Church is the Vine and God is the Harvester

Verses: Psalms 80: 1 - 19

Song inspired by the chapter:  Song has been uploaded from YouTube.com and is not my original.

My thoughts about the verses:

This Psalm is much like the parables that Jesus told.  There is a lesson that we can learn about the way the Jewish Community survived this time in their history.  We need to remember that the God we serve today is the same God of Old.  The one thing that we have that they did not have at the time this psalm was written.  We have the fulfillment of the promised Messiah.

The psalmist starts by saying that God brought the church out of Egypt.  Once out of the land the vine was planted in the promise land.  There it grew a very strong and deep root.  The church was healthy and was in communing with God and grew in strength and dedication to God. The vine became so strong that it was able to spread throughout the whole land.  The Church in this part of its history worshipped and served their God with all of its heart and soul.  It flourished because God was its center.

The Psalmist then asks why the church was under attack.  How could it be that a vine that was strong was allowed to be torn down by others?  How the Harvester could allowed the walls to be destroyed so that others could come and eat of the spoils of the vine.  Specifically how could the church be left for others to destroy it?

Yet, what they were missing is that they had forgotten what they had been through.  They had forgotten to keep God in the center of their life.  They were more interested in growing in power for the good of the Church.  They had lost their focus of growing in love for the glory of God.

It is then at this moment that they ask God to come and rebuild the wall.  The vine needs the help of the Harvester.  The Harvester is the only one that can protect the vine from the wilds of the environment.  Therefor the Church needs God in its center for it to survive.  Left at its own wills the members of the Church will turn away and forget their focal point.  Yet, with God’s guidance they will always keep focused on the one that can save them.

The Harvester can save us from ourselves.  We need to praise God and allow God to use the Church to witness the love of the Creator.  We need to turn back to the Harvester so that we will be safe from all the struggles in the world.

Prayer:

Dear God we thank you for all you have done.  We thank you for being the Savior of your Church.  Help us to stay focused on you.  Help us to put away our desires for power.  Help us tell others the story of love and salvation.  In the name of the Harvester we pray.  Amen

Questions:

Are you keeping God in the center of your life?  Are you struggling because of odds that seem too hard to overcome?  Are you willing to turn all things over to God?  Have you tried to grow in strength for you own good?  Are you working to help the harvester plant more seeds in fertile soil so that people can come to know the Messiah?