OnFireFit

Abide

Added 2022-08-03 11:00:08 +0000 UTC

Aug 3, 2022

Good morning

Reading a devotional I was doing with friends, I stopped and payed attention to a portion of a familiar verse:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

From John 15:1-3

The familiar part to me was that the branches that don’t bear fruit are taken away by HIM and the ones that do bear fruit, He prunes. Both can be a little painful. The branches that don’t bear fruit, I typically want to hold onto, but He knows the timing and reasons they have to go. Also, the branches that feel pretty productive…..even those have to be pruned! I always look with brief sadness when the gardener cuts back all those glorious roses. But soon, I see roses again in a greater number! So, the brief sadness is replaced with expectation….I know more is coming!

But the part I overlooked is” you are already clean”.......sooooo many times I feel like I’m either falling short so much every day or I feel like I need to do more. But here Jesus is saying you are already clean because of what HE has done. Again, a refocus on Him changes the whole thing! Just as I trust that the gardener will cut back the roses and more vibrant roses will indeed come back, I have to trust that I am already right with God and that He will do the pruning and cutting away the dead stuff.

The next part of that verse says: Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

To abide means to accept or act in accordance with. Accepting and Acting can sometimes feel so hard, but trusting that He already sees what we cannot see helps me to change my focus again!