Sep 20, 2023
What do you do with
yard trash?
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
15:6 NASB
When you trim a tree,
or pull weeds in your yard, you pile them up somewhere and
eventually they're burned. Jesus continues his analogy of the vine
and the branches. When we don't abide in Jesus, we are cut off,
hauled off and burned. That's a pretty vivid analogy.
Do we believe this?
Abide can also be translated remain. Our life, both the temporal
life and the eternal life, come from God the Father. We get them by
being connected to Jesus. Eventually, if you don't connect to
Jesus, and remain in him, you'll burn up. It's not a pleasant
thought.
Fortunately for those
of us who put our trust in Jesus, he is the one who helps us
remain, or abide in him. When we abide in him day-to-day, we can do
work that will last forever. But in this verse, Jesus isn't talking
about our accomplishments. I believe he has flipped the analogy to
people, not works. This clearly says, "If anyone..." It's like
Jesus has said up through verse 5 he was talking about our fruit.
But now he's talking about those who don't remain in him.
Do you remain in
Jesus? If you have trusted and bent your life to follow him, I
believe you will abide and that will result in salvation. In a
5-minute devotional, it's hard to finish the argument. Let's trust
Jesus today. Those that don't abide in him will end up being cast
off like dead branches. It's a challenging thought.
Today, let's abide in
Jesus. That may mean that we remind ourselves what we know and
trust about him. It may mean doing something you know he wants you
to do. Whatever it is, do it, and let us know what happened. Send a
note to info@followerofone.org to share your
experience.
Thanks for being a
marketplace minister and for remembering that what we do because we
follow Jesus matters, forever.