Connected

As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, 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, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. John 15:4-6

My neighbor has this ivy that grows on their fence. Since we share the same fence, that means the ivy also grows on my fence. My husband hates that ivy because it grows so fast and becomes wild if we don’t trim them. I don’t particularly mind about it since it does gives the fence a lush look with all the green leaves.

On one occasion, the ivy had grown so much that it almost covered the the whole side of our fence. So we had our side trimmed. But I noticed that there was one side where it was left untrimmed. But since my gardener had already left, I was going to call him back.

The next morning as I looked out the window, I noticed that the web of ivy that looked so green and healthy just the day before had turned brown and started to wilt.  I went outside and realized that it was no longer attached to the main branch.  Apparently, my gardener had cut it off from the main branch but had forgotten to pull it off the fence.

What a perfect illustration of that verse from John 15. This branch cannot survive more than a day on its own. What used to be so luscious and green had withered and die within hours. Jesus said we are just like those branches. We may think we can survive without him. We may look like we are doing well on the outside. But truthfully, if we are not connected to Him, our main branch, we won’t survive for very long. No matter how strong we are, if we disconnect ourselves from the Main Source of life, we will not survive very long.

The same principles apply to both our spirit and physical world. Most of you have heard of the disease called Gangrene. The Mayo Clinic define gangrene as death of body tissue due to either a lack of blood flow or a serious bacterial infection.

(https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gangrene/symptoms-causes/syc-20352567)

Stay connected to the Lord. He is the bread of life. He is the living water.

Photo by Luke van Zylon Unsplash
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Photo by Kate Remmer on Unsplash