Good morning
Morning devotions led by Archdeacon Keith N. Cartwright of St Agnes in Grants Town Please listen and enjoy and wherever possible share Thank you ever so much 🙏
Anglican Diocese of The Bahamas & The Turks & Caicos
Morning devotions led by Archdeacon Keith N. Cartwright
# Up by with me, fast, false even time # # The darkness deepens, Lord, with me, abide # # When other developers can come firstly # # Help of the helpless who abide with me # A very pleasant good morning to you. Today, I'm bringing you devotions for our prayer group at St. Agnes, where we are on the road to celebrate our 180th anniversary as a church. That happens, of course, next July in 2025. But we have begun 180 days of prayer meetings for our special anniversary coming up next year. So we want to get a little closer to God each and every day as a church community. So we are having these special prayer meetings. But these devotions are also for our daily devotions brought to you by the Anglican Diocese of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicas Islands. Good morning again. I'm Archdeacon Keith Cartwright and it's Tuesday, the 20th day of August 2024. And it actually is St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvox, who died in the year 1153 AD. Now, Bernard was truly a fiery defender of the faith in the 12th century, and he was so famous for the way he preached the love for God. He was completely absorbed in doing so even to the neglect of his own health. He preached so persuasively that many persons became followers of Jesus and many became mounts like him in the monastery and spent the rest of their lives in the service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His writings made him one of the most influential figures in the history of the church. And also, friends, Bernard produced many beautiful hymns. One of the most beautiful hymns that I like comes to us in hymn number 142 in the blue hymnal, the CPWI, and it is "O sacred head, so wounded." And we sing that during Holy Week every time. Let us pray the cholic for St. Bernard's Day. O God, by whose grace your servant St. Bernard of Clairvox, kindled with the flame of your love, became a burning and shining light in your church. Grant that we also may be a flame with the spirit of love and discipline and walk before you as children of the light through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen. And my brothers and sisters, the scripture for reflection today on this St. Bernard's Day comes to us from St. John chapter 15. It's verses 1 through 11 and verse 16. That's John chapter 15 verses 1 through 11 and verse 16. And it reads as follow. "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes to make it bear even more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches, those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers. Such branches are gathered and then thrown into the fire and then burnt. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me so I've I loved you, abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Here ends the reading of Scripture. God wants you, my dear brothers and sisters, he wants you for your life to count. You know God created us in his image and likeness and so you and me are special and he wants our lives to be lives of great significance. Several times in the Gospel of John, Jesus makes a statement of who he is in the "I am" statements. And we know some of them, "I am the good shepherd," Jesus tells us, he tells us to "I am the light of the world." But in chapter 15 of John, he gives us the last of these "I ams." "I am the vine." "You are the branches." "I am the vine." "You are the branches." And you know everyone around Jesus in his day would have understood what Jesus meant because you know in Palestine they had many, many vineyards. And the vineyards, when they were properly cultivated and properly kept, they produce lots of good, good sweet grapes which in turn made great wines. It is absolutely important though for the gardener to keep the branches trimmed. Now in this passage that we read this morning for St. Bernard's Day, in this passage God is the gardener. Jesus is the vine. And you and me are the branches. The purpose of the branch is simply to bear fruit. A branch by itself cannot bear fruit and has no value and so it is thrown away and eventually burnt. What the gardener desires for the branch is simply what God desires for you and me, my brothers and sisters. He wants us to live a life that is real, a life that is important, and a life that fulfills its true purpose. Just as a branch can only bear fruit if it is connected, connected to the vine. In the same way our lives can only be significant if we are connected to Jesus. You see your life and mine is most fruitful and most productive when we relate to Christ inwardly. You see the word Christian has been so misunderstood these days. But you know Jesus gives us the true meaning when he speaks about the branch being joined to the vine. We have to be connected to Jesus and Christianity being a Christian is all about having the right connection. How many times have you heard that if you want to get ahead in life you need to have the right connection? Jesus is saying to be a Christian you have got to have the right connection in him. A friend that and my dear friend sorry that is what makes Christianity so special for me. To be a Christian means that we have to be connected to the person Jesus. The person is Christ himself. When we look at the Buddhists they do not claim to be connected to Buddha. The Muslim does not claim you have to be connected to Muhammad. But Christianity is the only religion in all the world that speaks about a personal connection. You have got to be connected to the person and who is that person? Jesus but once you are connected to Jesus then you and I reproduce and that is why Jesus says in verse 16. You did not choose me but I chose you that you would go and bear fruit. As true followers of Jesus God's number one concern for you and me is that we are fruitful to bear fruit. Our inward relationship our being connected to Jesus is going to make us produce good fruit. It's going to produce Christ likeness and what does it mean to be Christ like? Jesus came to earth and he showed us what it means to be Christ like. He just did not tell us or he wasn't like one of the prophets who says thus says the Lord. He turns up he shows up and he lives a life as an example for you and for me. And so we have a pattern in which to follow to be Christ like to be like Jesus. Saint Paul expands on it talking about the fruits that we ought to produce. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And when we look at them all who do we see? Of course Jesus. So producing fruits my friends is to be like Jesus, to be Christ like. But to produce good fruit the gardener has to keep the branches pruned. But nobody likes to be pruned because pruning means the gardener has got to get out the scissors. The gardener has to cut, the gardener has to get the shears and he has to cut off some things. Friends the Lord comes and he cuts away the sucker shoots from our lives. They come to us many times in the challenges of life. You can feel the cutting scissors when we are confined to a hospital bed perhaps lying flat on our back. Or maybe when we are fired from our job we have no income coming in anymore. When maybe our husband or wife leaves us or when our rebellious child leaves home and the home is broken. Many a challenge is the gardener's scissors making the cuts. And when these things happen many of us get vexed, many of us get bitter, many of us get resentful. But we fail to realize, we fail to understand that God is simply cutting away our arrogance. Cutting away our pride, cutting away our dependency on the wrong things in life. It is God's way of pruning the branch, pruning you and me to get back on track my friends. To get back to God, to get back to the things of God, to get back to our faith, get back to what we know is true Jesus himself. God only wants us to produce the fruits that will last and to remain focused in Christ. This is why he says in verse 4, "Abide in me." Now the word "abide" means to remain or to continue. It simply means we are to continuously make Jesus to be the center of our thoughts, the focus of our lives and the passion of our hearts. There's a great lesson to learn when you make your cup of tea this morning, sisters and brothers, and just watch out when you do it. When you put a tea bag in your cup of hot water, as the tea bag remains or abides in the hot water, that water begins to take on the color and the taste of the tea. So too we take on the color and taste of Jesus Christ when we abide in him. We take on the color and flavor of his life. The way you abide in Christ is to spend time with him each day in your prayer meeting, just like this morning, in your prayer life at home or in the workplace or wherever, taking time out maybe for these devotions every morning, reading and studying God's Word in Scripture, going and receiving the Holy Communion, the Blessed Sacrament, as often as we meet, stay connected friends, stay producing fruits. Don't be afraid when the Lord prunes you and he prunes me. Just stay focused and abide in him. You know something? If you want to know whether or not you are producing, I ask you this morning, just simply go and look in the mirror. Yes, look in the mirror and ask yourself, truthfully, what kind of fruit am I bearing? This is Archdeacon Keith Cartwright saying so long and have a wonderful St. Bernard's Day. I wish Canon Peter Scott a very happy birthday today, my dear friend. Enjoy God bless each and every one of you and see you at church. ♪ O thou thy cross be formed by closing eyes ♪ ♪ Shine through the movement ♪ ♪ Boys, meet through the skies ♪ ♪ And chaddles me ♪ [BLANK_AUDIO]