Without Me you can do nothing

Jesus confirmed He is the TRUE VINE, and we are the branches. 

John 15:5-8

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

 

The Hebrew word for ‘vine’ is ‘Gephen’. It means ‘twining’. Look at the vine and you will see how the branches twine around each other. The branches and the stem intertwine. They need support so that they can grow up in a circular way and not be pulled down by the force of gravity. 

 

Waiting on God is a form of entwining your life with God. Your will entwined with His will; your purposes entwined with God’s purpose. They that wait or entwine their lives with God shall renew their strength!

 

 A branch that is truly entwined and connected to the vine cannot be removed. The life sap of the vine flows through the branches and brings forth fruit. The loose branches that appear to be part of the vine, are not part of it. The vine dresser will remove those branches and cast them into the fire because they use sap of the vine but do not produce any fruit.

 

Jesus spoke this parable about the vine on the night that He was betrayed. He washed the feet of the disciples after Judas left the room to betray Him. Jesus told the disciples you are part of Me. But Judas was not part of Him, and He knew that. He did not wash Judas’ feet.

 

John 15:3

³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.’

 

Those whom He washed were made clean because of the words they received from Him and because they were part of Him. Judas wasn’t. There are many people who appear to be part of a church body, but they are not. They bear no fruit that would bring glory to God the Father. God gives them grace for many years but eventually they get cut off and cast away.

 

The branch cannot bear any fruit by itself. It needs to stay attached to the vine. That is why Jesus claimed, ‘without Me you can do nothing.’ He encouraged them to abide in Him and let His words abide in them. It’s a simple strategy. You keep your eyes on Jesus and read the Word of God. He abides in you, and you abide in Him. the Word of God. He abides in you, and you abide in Him. You are part of His body, the church of which He is the Head.

 

By acknowledging that you are part of the vine you allow the Vine Dresser to prune you. Pruning is a form of purging that allows the branch to produce bigger and better fruit, yes to bear much more fruit. Without pruning a vine, it becomes useless, and the grapes dry out.

 

God is glorified if you bear much fruit. Jeremiah 5:7 says the Lord rejoices over His vineyard.

 

Factors that prevent fruit bearing and spiritual growth:

1.    Deception comes through false teaching and lies of the devil

2.    There is no denying of self or taking up the cross

3.    Jealousy, envy, competition

4.    No patience to wait causing frustration and irritation

5.    Ungratefulness for all that God has done

 

If we can do nothing without Him, we need to confess, ‘It’s no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in Him.’

 

God promised us that we would inherit vineyards that we never planted! There are so many churches relating to our network and there are more coming! But without Him we can do nothing. 

 

 

Jehovah-Jireh

 Jehovah Jireh

Saturday 10 July 2022

God spoke to me in a dream and said, ‘Jehovah-Jireh’. It is the redemptive name of God revealed to Abraham when his faith in God. God gave him and Sarah many promises that they would have a son even though she were past the age of childbearing. When Isaac (‘Laughter’) was born God asked Abraham (‘Father of nations’) to sacrifice his son in a designated place on a mountain. 

Abraham understood that the sacrifice God demanded was a total burned sacrifice. By faith Abraham saw Isaac rise from the ashes. He believed the God was able to do it and announced, ‘God will provide His own offering.’ With that statement Abraham prophesied John 3:16: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.’

Isaac asked his father where the offering was, Abraham stated prophetically, ‘God will provide!’ Isaac was willing to be sacrificed for he also believed God was able to raise him from the ashes. Abraham bound Isaac to the altar and raised the sacrificial knife to kill his only son. All the promises God gave Abraham was bound up in his son. He was willing to sacrifice all the promises God made to him. What a moment! Paul writes in Galatians that Abraham was not weak in faith but Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[c]

7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”[d] 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Romans 4:16-21

16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”[c] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”[d] 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Because of Abraham’s faith we are included in the same promise of God.

7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”[d] 9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Abraham believed God would provide. He pronounced his faith and shared it with his son who also believed the promise. Jehovah-Jireh is God’s name. He cannot fail to provide because He is known by that name. ‘Provider’ explains who God is. He will live up to His name. God provided for all who believe in Him in both the Old and the New Testaments. He can provide for you and me if we believe in Him. He cannot fail.

He provided for Isaac throughout his life and to his sons Jacob and Esau. Jacob taught his twelve sons to trust in God’s provision and to serve God with their tithes as Abraham taught them. God will do the same for all who believe and trust in Him. This is the word of the Lord to you today: ‘God will provide!’ Receive it, believe it, and confess it.

‘I am Ebenezer’

In 1992 God spoke to me in my bedroom in 14 Quest Avenue, Milnerton at about 10 am in the morning. I heard God’s voice say, ‘I am Ebenezer.’ God has proven that name to us as a family and to all those who are with us that He is Ebenezer, meaning, ‘up till now I have helped you.’ He has helped us and guided us for thirty-one years, and even before that! He will continue to be Ebenezer because his name is Ebenezer!

God’s Provision & Supply

On Saturday night He revealed His name, Jehovah-Jireh, the great Provider’ to me in a dream. His provision comes through Christ Jesus. He provided salvation to all who believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is our heavenly Father that provides our daily bread. In Philippians 4:19 the Philippian Church gave an offering to Apostle Paul to help him with his missionary work. Paul pronounced a blessing over them, ‘my God shall supply all your needs in Christ Jesus.’ Paul told them because you were willing to contribute towards my needs as an apostle, my God will also supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. The members of the body of Christ help each other to fulfil the Great Commission to go into all the world to preach the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations.

The word ‘supply’ means to make available for use, to donate, to bestow, to give, to grant and to contribute. In other words, supply means to make something needed available for use. If you are prepared to contribute to the work of God, God shall supply your needs through Christ Jesus. He will find a way to meet your needs and make available what is required. There is no other God that can do it! He is the only true God! His promises are true, yes and amen!

Whatever you are facing, God can help you through life. It may look impossible now, but God can do it. Confess His name and say, ‘You are Jehovah-Jireh, my great provider!’ Trust Him who is invisible and make sure you testify about His provision to encourage others to believe in Him. As you and I continue to work together in the world mission, ‘In Other Lands Missionary Society’ we will experience the reality of Jehovah-Jireh, our Provider, and give Him all the glory.

Sweet Potato Communion

Holy Sweet Potato Communion

January 2012

Harvester Uganda

It has been agreed in principle that Richard Ssendi will head up Harvester International Ministries in Uganda. This includes the school for Aids & War Orphans that he started outside Kampala. There are 260 children, 150 primary and 110 secondary students in the school. Richard purchased property and built a school for the secondary students and rents an empty school for the primary school purposes that includes a hall. We will utilise the hall for conferences and seminars. That way we will save venue costs. We can also use the classrooms for accommodation for the conferences and the kitchen to make food. 

We need to pay the registration fee ($1 200) to register the name of the Church under Harvester officially. Richard has brought the entire operation under the wings of Harvester. We would like to purchase the ground and the school from him and help to support him until the school becomes a financially viable proposition. When there are 400 students the school will be a profitable institution providing salaries for staff and food for children.

Annual Conference

I spoke at Nelson Kabuuka’s Annual Conference in Exodus Church; Kampala like I have done the past two years in January.

This time I sensed a fresh anointing on my singing and preaching and others testified accordingly. My prophetic acting of ‘Three degrees of Unity’ really got through to the hearts and minds of the delegates at the conference and the presence of the Lord became tangibly real.

Sweet Potato Prophetic Act

I took cooked sweet potatoes of different colours and sizes and began to peel them. Then I showed how they have unity in the fact that they are sweet potatoes, and they are all the same white colour after being peeled, but they still differ in size. The one is bigger than the other; the one is more important than the other. The little ones are ignored.

So, I sliced them up and suddenly no one knew the big one from the small one anymore! They were all the same size. But there was still not perfect unity. They were still separated.

Then I took a mortar and pestle and mashed the sweet potatoes into a thick porridge. Then I asked, ‘where is the big potato now?’ It showed perfect unity!

I ran through the audience and fed them the cooked by hand. They all agreed that it tasted good! Sweet potatoes are part of the staple diet in Uganda.

The sweet potatoes submitted to the process of peeling, cutting, and mashing. When they became one, I could feed the people.

There are three degrees of unity: unity of spirit, when we worship and praise together; unity of faith that comes as the result of the same frequency of preaching of the Word of God; and lastly the unity Jesus prayed for: perfect in one: ‘Father let them be one in us as we are one, I in you and you in me, them in us and us in them.’ (John 17) At that stage the unity will manifest the full measure of the stature of Christ in our midst. There is no schism in such unity.

Then people who come into the meeting will taste and see that the Lord is good! They will be convicted in their hearts that God is in that place. They will be fed with Manna from heaven.

Someone shouted as I fed the people in the conference: ‘we are having holy sweet potato communion today!’

 

Some people in church only enjoy unity in spirit when we worship in spirit and truth. Then there are those who begin to realize that unity in faith is important instead of everyone having their own opinion and own interpretation of the word. But only those who submit completely to the work of the Holy Spirit that makes them die to self and become one with the body will enjoy the sweetness of the presence of the Lord and become spiritual nourishment to others. This has to do with suffering for Christ and the Gospel’s sake as well. The suffering is represented by the peeling and mashing.

The degree of unity determines the degree of manifestation of the stature of Christ in a body of believers. Let us go on to perfection, spirits of just men made perfect, aligning ourselves with the Church of the Firstborn, the New Jerusalem, Mt. Zion, where Jesus is the Mediator of the New and Better Covenant (Hebrews 12:20-22)

Testimonies

I ministered many times and they tried to film it in the darkened tin shanty hall, and I will soon have the DVDs available. I believe it was a significant time for all those who attended the conference and for the church people.

Some said, ‘Andre loves us; that’s why he comes back to us. He has become a father to us. He speaks to us like a father. Many of us have no father; God sent him to be a father to us.’ Others said, ‘we learned so much in this conference, we are taking it home with us to our people to teach them what we have learned.’