As Branches We Need All of the Vine

When God tells us to come to Him, for His "yoke is easy and burden light", He is telling us that He is looking to do the actual "work" of becoming more like Christ for us.  My pastor this morning spoke on this topic  and helped me recognize that much more just how great God is, and how powerless I really am.  God calls us to live for Him by pursuing after Him wholeheartedly and being completely surrendered to Him in all areas of life. Once we do this, we are opening the doors and allowing God to come in and change us to become more like Jesus.  Often times we feel like we need to "work" to become more like Christ, but this is not the case.  The "work" that God calls us to do is to pursue Him in relationship, and pursue obedience and surrender in every moment, but when it comes to actually becoming more like Christ, that is the work that God does for us.  Only He can do it, and He does it through pursuit of relationship, obedience and surrender.  But we must do our part if we expect God to do His.


I must never confuse work done by my own effort and fruit of the Spirit.  I can do a lot of work for God without actually relying on Him and His strength.  For instance, I can go and visit people in the hospital and teach children in school and work really hard at it, but if I am not surrendered and focused on Christ in doing so, then I am relying on  my on strength and effort.  I must instead be focused on, and relying upon, Christ and His strength so that I can produce fruit for God rather than just doing work which is meaningless because I am relying on my own strength.

In order to grow in Christ I must ensure that I, as a branch, am receiving nurishment/power from the Vine.  The Vine is the Holy Spirit.  A branch can do nothing meaningful without the nourishment and strength which is provided by the vine alone.  It is the same for us.  He is the Vine and we are the branches.  We cannot produce any fruit without Him.  Therefore, we must at all times ensure that we are completely surrendered to Him in every area of our lives so that we can ensure that we are receiving all the power that God, the Vine, wants to make available to us, His branch.  As branches, we need all of the Vine in order to live life to its fullest, not just some of the the Vine.  This comes through complete surrender.

Every nook and cranny of my life needs to be about Him.  Every moment of my life needs to be about Him.  The reason for this is the fact that God created us, and in doing so He wired us so that the only way we would ever be truly fulfilled in life is when we are completely surrendered to Him.  And notice the term completely.  Not partial, or a little bit, or mostly surrendered; but completely surrendered.  Every aspect of my life needs to be about Him.  It needs to be about bring glory, honor, praise and worship to Him, and this can only happen when I am completely surrendered to the Lord in every area of my life.

Yield signs on the road mean we must give the right of way.  I must be fully yielded to God.