A Fulfilled Vine

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, NIV).

       

 God's power is real when the Holy Spirit lives in me. No matter how weak or how unaccomplished I might be, when I allow God to work through me, then what I do will be powerful. I need to remember this during days when I seem to slide back two steps after climbing one. No day is a failure when I have given it to God. His use of my surrendered day may not be apparent, but it is real. If I dwell in Him, and He dwells in me, then I will bear fruit. The fruit is not mine to bear. I am just the branch which carries the life of the vine to the fruit. He is the vine, and I am the branch. For the life of the vine to flow through me, I must surrender all that I am to Him. If I dwell in Him, and desire only His will and His purpose, His Spirit will not fail to flow through my life into the lives of others.

        Sometimes I just feel powerless. I yearn for the Holy Spirit to take over my struggle, but I feel He is blocked in my life. The only block that can hold His power from flowing through my life is self. If this is the case, then my yearning for Him must not be enough. There must come a brokenness of my will in every area of my life. Do I yearn for His power enough to surrender all that I am, all that I want, all that I have decided?  Do I not realize that when I hold on to the least vestige of myself I have told the Lord that I am the vine? That is pride. Think of Peter telling the Lord he was not worthy to have his feet washed. What appeared as humility in Peter was really pride. Peter was trying to hold onto the last vestige of himself by saying he was not worthy, and the Lord was asking for His total surrender. Pride. Self. Unworthiness. All are excuses to my absolute surrender.

        If I hunger to be a vessel of His love and His power, then I will seek to be broken of self. When self is gone, the Holy Spirit can flow―unhindered by my human limitations. For others to be changed by the power and love of the God in my life, I must live a surrendered life through which He can flow. If I yield completely to Him everyday, then I can be a vessel of all of Him flowing through all that I am not. When I am broken of self in order to receive all that He is, He can flow through me so that others can receive that which I alone can never give―His love, His peace, His joy.

        Lord, break me for your purpose. Get my selfishness out of your way today. Come, Holy Spirit, and touch and move through me. Love through me; forgive through me; encourage through me; rejoice through me; guide through me, and fill others through me. Holy Spirit, be what I can never be―YOU, alive and flowing through my life so others, too, may live.