This morning in my devotions, I was reading John 15, Where Jesus talks about the vine and the branches. It’s very simple, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. He is the source of our power and in fact our lives. Our abilities to do truly God honoring things and live God honoring lives is directly connected to our connection to Him and apart from Him we can do nothing. Now some will want to argue that there are plenty of people who do truly great things with no connection to the Lord at all. First of all I would argue that is false. Everything we have from their air we breathe on down comes from God and even those who have no connection to Him live in the benefits of His blessing. Remember, “He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust.” Other than that, I believe it is His desire to draw all people to Himself, and this may be part of that. I can’t speak with total accuracy to that, what I can speak to is those of us who have come to Christ, for us connection to the vine is critical.
So how do we stay connected. We cannot overstate the importance of prayer and the study of God’s Word. The more we do these things the greater our connection will be. At times, I confess, the busyness of life can choke that out of me. I can be so busy doing the work and finishing the projects that I can push those things to the side. The problem without is, I can end up doing empty works disconnected from the vine. These works will not be fruitful. I want to bear fruit, How about you?
Of course, the other thing to be considered is the Gardener. Jesus said God the Father is the Gardener. He cuts off the fruitless branches and I pray I will never become one of those, but there is another aspect to this—pruning. Pruning is the sometimes painful process of cutting away the dead wood in our lives so that we can thrive. Are there any dead works you continue in that are not bearing fruit? God in His mercy will trim those away so you can focus solely on the fruit bearing parts of life. It can feel really bad, as some of these things are hard to let go, but what is one of our primary goals as believers? Isn’t it to glorify God by living fruitful lives. May we all bear much fruit and stay fruitful connected to the vine. Be a fruitful branch. Work to stay connected and don’t avoid the pruning.
AMOKArts 