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356. Apart From Me You Can Do Nothing


Key Verse: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in Him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5

In the wilderness, the people were slow to understand how important it is to be in the Lord’s Will and how necessary it is to set aside our own. God had blessed and approved the plan to send out spies from the Children of Israel into enemy territory. God watched over those who were spies. He blessed and protected them and allowed them to bring back proof of the goodness of the land.

However, ten of those men did not recognize the Lord’s blessing of protection. Instead of proclaiming the goodness of the Lord, they talked about the inability of man to conquer the good land that the Lord was promising to them. Rather than trust the words of Joshua and Caleb, the people saw their own frailty and listened to the doubters.

This became a pivotal event in the history of Israel. This is the event that caused the Lord to finally turn His back on that generation and wait for the next generation to take its place. The people saw their mistake too late, but did not realize that God’s blessing had left them. They thought that they could go ahead anyway and take on their enemy without God’s help. They learned the hard way how much they needed to abide in Him to be able to do anything for His purpose.

Instead of coming into the Promised Land within a few short years of leaving Egypt, they were destined to wander for forty years while God waited for the older generation to be replaced. He kept them safe and provided for their comfort, but He withheld His strength. Apart from Him, they could do nothing. Their children needed to see this important lesson lived out.

We are no different. How often do we pray for the Lord to bless what we are doing rather than listen to Him and ask to be involved with what He is blessing? Like the children of Israel, we get a bright idea and forge ahead assuming that the Lord will bless it because we are doing it for Him! At those times, we need to be careful because we may be behaving like the Israelites who just knew that the Lord approved of their actions without checking with Him first.

Jesus paints an intimate picture here of Him as a grape vine with us as branches. Again, the necessity of closeness to Him is emphasized. He is the vine and His Father is the vine dresser. A branch needs to stay connected to its root. That is the only way that it will receive nourishment. It can produce fruit only by receiving the nourishment the root provides. It can’t produce a different kind of fruit or even a different breed of grape and it can do nothing but die if it is removed from the vine altogether. “Remain in Me and I will remain in you.” (John 15:4) Jesus does not reject us. He longs to remain attached to us. However, we often choose to run off and do our own thing, or ignore Him. When we do this, we risk becoming unfruitful altogether. We risk having the Father remove us from His vine.

This last color for our "I Am" portrait of Christ, we should make purple. Purple is the color of grapes, but also the color of royalty. Our vine is our King and we are royal purple because of Him. The blood of His grapes was shed for us, spilling onto our pallor making us part of His royal Kingdom as a result. “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love.” (John 15:9) God can be the great “I Am,” to us only as we stay close to Him to receive all that, “I Am,” is.




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