Abide

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. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

JOHN 15:5-6 

 

I like words, if you didn't already know that.  In fact, there are certain phrases that my mind will latch onto from almost every move, television program, or book.  These phrases rattle around my brain (like a handful of ball bearings in a steel drum) eventually becoming part of my regular discourse.  

 

One such phrase is from the movie "The Big Lebowski".  I won't give away the plot, but the phrase my mind latched onto is "The Dude Abides". My mind took this phrase and immediately thought of today's passage.  If we abide with Christ, we will bear much fruit.  As we are into the Lent season, I decided that I'm not going to GIVE UP anything, rather I will seek rehabituation (replacing a negative habit with a positive habit).  I will be seeking to change my habit of trying to do God's job, or at least stop telling Him how I would do His job, and seek to abide with Christ relying on Him instead.

 

This Dude Abides in Christ!

What Fruit Does Your Life Reveal?

You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

Matthew 7:16 

If someone were to look at your life, with all its moments of caring, rebellion, joy, anger, empathy, compassion, frustration, lashing out...what fruit would they see?  You see, the way we live, the things we say, the way we interact with others all reveal the truth about us.  Are we encouraging or demeaning.  Are we grapes or thorns? Jesus reminds us that you can tell a lot about people by the "fruit" they bear.  

When I was growing up, I was told the fruit my life represented was a persimmon, (guess who told me that), and my birth stone was granite, and my birth flower was ragweed. At the time, I just chuckled along with that person on the outside while on the inside I found those statements rather hurtful.  I have gotten older (stop chuckling), and grown thicker skin, but I admit that I still struggle with being the best I can be.  I know that I mess up a lot, and hurt others.  I admit that I have been hurt by others that I once trusted.  But part of our fruit of life comes in how we handle life when the hiccups happen to us.

Let me ask you, is God ever surprised by us?  Is He surprised by the things we do?  Nope!  Not only are we unable to hide anything (and I do mean ANYTHING) from God, but He has already had a plan in place to deal with our situations since before time began.  And when we are able to rely on Him regardless what's happening in our lives, we will find His peace and contentment.