Honey From The Rock

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Honey From The Rock
Psalm 81:16

"Sweet Stuff From God's Word"

A daily Bible study with Victor Knowles
Copyright 2007

BRANCHOLOGY 101

This entry was posted on 10-06-2008 and is filed under uncategorized.

"No branch can bear fruit by itself..." (John 15:4 NIV). After a windstorm at my grandmother's house I went out to help her clean up the yard. The ground was littered with branches from her apple tree and plum tree. I was not very old but I had enough sense even then to realize that those branches would never bear fruit again. This is Branchology 101. "No branch can bear fruit by itself."

It is a virtual impossibility to think that we can be a good Christian and not be connected to Christ (the True Vine). Jesus said, "I am the vine, you are the branches." There is only one vine, one source of spiritual strength, Jesus Christ. That's why He also said, "Without me you can do nothing." The first chapter of the Bible that I memorized was Psalm 1. The blessed man is like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water (v. 3). That verse goes on to say, "That brings forth its fruit it its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper." This morning on my way to the office I saw a dead branch lying in the front yard. It will never again bear even a leaf. It shall never prosper. I will throw it on the woodpile later today. What a striking symbol of our text today: "No branch can bear fruit by itself." Let us abide (remain) in Christ so that we may be a fruit-bearing branch - "Juice for Jesus!"

Poem:
'Tis only a little branch,
   A thing so fragile and weak,
But that little branch hath a message true
   To give could it only speak.

"I'm only a little branch,
   I live by a life not mine,
For the sap that flows through my tendrils small
   Is the life-blood of the Vine."

                                            (Freda Hanbury)