Remain In

Today's Reading: John 15:5-14

I have a lot of trees in my yard and every time we have a storm or the wind blows the least little bit, there are limbs of all sizes blown to the ground. They often land in the driveway too and while some are small enough to run over, this morning I had to go move a big ole three-pronged limb so I could go to work. I'm amazed that there are that many limbs to be cast off my trees. You would think at some point, there wouldn't be any left to drop off or the ones that are left would be big enough and strong enough to stay attached to the tree.

But apparently not.

Today's reading reminded me of those limbs. Verse six says, "If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." 


Thrown away. Withered. Thrown into the fire. Burned. Not good. 

The correlation was immediately apparent to me. The branches that land in my yard and driveway are not, for whatever reason, remaining in their trees strongly enough to keep from being blown to the ground. Jesus tells us that we are just like that. If we don't remain in Him, we will not be strong enough to keep from being blown away either. 

I don't know about you but the idea of being thrown away and withered does not sound appealing. At all.


So how do we remain in Him? Verse seven tells us that His words need to remain in us and verse nine says we need to remain in His love. Those are the keys for my life - staying in God's word and being obedient. God's word has to be so embedded in me that obedience is just becomes second nature. What about you? Are you in God's word daily? And are you doing what it says? 

And the result of that according to Jesus is that we will bear much fruit, we will glorify the Father, and we will remain in the Father's love. 


The alternative is that we loosen our grip and risk losing a limb to the next strong wind that comes along. Where would you prefer to remain?

- Holly Barrett