Wednesday 23 Jan 2013

Wednesday Reading: John 15:1-9

Key Verse: John 15:5
5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Devotion:
Just as we Christians are all part of one body, the church, we have a head of that church, Jesus Christ who is there to teach us the way that we should go. Jesus took time out of every day to make sure that people got to hear the Gospel and that they got to know God a little better through Him and through His teaching. Whilst we may not all be able to teach (or at least we may think we cannot) we are all able to communicate with others in one form or another. It is that communication which should always glorify God in some manner so that others will know God a little better just by us being there.

God the Father has made sure that we do get our fill from Jesus and from the Holy Spirit. He has made sure that we have a good supply of daily bread to sustain us through each day that we face because He wants us to know just how much He cares for us in ways that we don’t often think too much about. He is always there, always giving us more, always allowing us to take our full share of what we need from His abundant supply that He alone has.

Each one of us is a branch taking from Him and He expects us to be able to pass a bit of what we obtain through Him on to others who are willing to listen to what we have learned from Him. We may not be learning directly from Him as the disciples did, but He teaches us through His Word and through others so that we can know all we need to know. But in order to be able to learn from Christ we have to be connected to Him, be it through someone or through lots of people; we have a direct source of the Word that comes to us in many ways – but we also have to make sure that it is the Word.

It would be no good if we were to take on all manner of stuff from someone who is not part of the church because we would not know where that would lead us. God wants us to only learn His gospel because He knows that that is what we need in our lives. When we take in that Word we take in exactly what God has designed for us and what He wants us to know. If we are not going to take on that goodness from Him and pass it on then we are not going to allow others to bear the fruit that God wants them to bear.

Points to Ponder:
How do others view you?

Are you encouraging others to bear fruit?