Little Chats With God

Posts Tagged ‘abiding’

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5John 15:5
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5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

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The idea of bearing much fruit sounds good to me, Lord. It’s no fun working your heart out, only to find that in the end it all turns to dust. That’s what happens with our human efforts. I’ve seen it in others, I’ve experienced it for myself, and I really can do without it.

So, You’re saying that the trick is to remain in You – to “abide” in You, as the old version says. I’m guessing that You mean something rather more than simply continuing to profess the Christian faith – there’s heaps of people that do that, but without the slightest evidence of fruit in their lives.

It seems to me the branch is in a place of total dependence upon the vine. The vine is its only source of life. If it is cut off from the vine, it dies. I guess we need to be in that kind of dependence upon You: not looking to other things or other people as our source of life, strength, happiness, peace, provision, health or anything else. It all has to come from You, even though You might deliver it through other means to get it to us.

At the same time, I see a constancy here. The branch doesn’t toddle off and do its own thing, then just come back to the vine when it needs another feed of sap. It stays attached to the vine all the time. It receives from the vine in a constant flow.

That’s the hard bit, Lord. Learning to stay constantly attached to You through all life’s ups and downs and runnings around in small circles. It’s all to easy to fall back to seeing prayer as a quick meal snatched between battles – and sometimes the battle gets so long and dragged out that it’s easy to forget to pray at all.

Help me, Lord, to become so attached to You that Your life is able to constantly flow to me, and through me.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
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5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

WP-Bible plugin)in Whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in bodily form (Colossians 2:9Colossians 2:9
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9 For in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily,

WP-Bible plugin)and Whom God the Father has exalted to the highest place, giving Him the Name which is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9-11Philippians 2:9-11
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9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, ¹¹ and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

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