John 15: 4-5
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
I am the Vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
To "abide" is to dwell there, to reside there. That's where you live. Jesus says we must live in Him. We must be aware of His presence with us, and trust Him to always stay with us and never leave.
When we want to use an electric appliance, we need to make sure it's plugged in. When I had my coffee this morning, I plugged the coffee maker in, and it worked, it made my coffee.
We also need to be "plugged in" in order to "work."
I need to be connected to the source of Life and power in order to do anything of any value. I need to live every day in the presence and power of Christ, in His Holy Spirit. Life is spirit, and eternal Life is God's Spirit living in me.
So we who have trusted Jesus' death to be our personal Sacrifice, and believe that He was buried and rose again, then His Blood has washed away all of our sins and His Spirit abides in us, to never leave. It's like we've been born spiritually, comparable to how we were born physically.
That's why Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be "born again" to be able to see and enter God's kingdom (John 3:3, 5-8).
A branch that is not connected can look like part of the vine, but if it's not attached to the vine, it will wither. It needs the constant flow to maintain its vibrancy and to bear fruit. Otherwise it's not good for anything.
O my Father, thank You so much for grafting me into the Vine. Thank You that Your Spirit of Life has given me Life, and that I am living in the Life of Your Kingdom now, looking forward to when that Kingdom is established on the Earth. My King rules in my life now, and He will rule over the whole World when He returns.
O Father, Your plan for my life is such a good path for me to follow! I find Your blessings of wonderful nuggets of Truth and Life and goodness every day. Keep my hand in Yours, Father; don't let me pull away or run ahead or lag behind. Let me not turn to the right or to the left or wander off.
You are so good to me, Father, in every way. Strengthen me to lean only on You in all my interactions with others. Help me to think before I speak, keeping me from spouting off from my flesh. So that Your Name will be honored in all my dealings, and You will receive the credit for what You enable me to do.
Father, help all Your children to know You better every day, and trust You more freely every day, and love You more deeply day by day. Weave all of the strands of our lives into Your great Tapestry of Time, working all the colors and shimmerings and shades into the beautiful patterns You have designed to display throughout all eternity.
And You will receive all the honor, all the glory, all the blessings, all the wealth, all the power, all the might, all the authority; because You created all things, because of Your will they exist. We are all what You have imagined, and if You weren't thinking of us, we would not be!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
