Remain Connected

Even in old age they will still produce fruit; they will remain vital and green.

-Psalm 92:14 NLT

If you are like me, you might feel your physical body aging. However, your life can still beat with His purpose. You can still make a difference in someone's life. Your life can still bear fruit. It is all up to you to keep your spiritual life vital, green, and supple in His hands.

To remain spiritually vital you must abide or remain in Him. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you,” Jesus told the disciples the night before His death, “for a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me” (John 15:2, NLT). The only way to stay green and supple is to remain in close spiritual contact with God. “In abiding you seek, long for, thirst for, wait for, see, know, love, hear and respond to a person,” writes Bruce Wilkinson in Secrets of the Vine. Jesus Christ longs to have a deep intimate relationship with you—not just one that scratches the surface of your heart, but one that draws you daily into His presence. It is a relationship that changes the very core of who you are, and drives your life into sheer fulfillment.

Jesus is the vine, and you are the branch. You stay vital and supple when you stay connected to the source of your spiritual life. If you don't, you dry up and wither away. “Think about the meeting place of vine and branch,” Wilkerson writes. “Why would Jesus give us a picture of a living thing whose life force—the sap—is mysteriously out of sight? One reason could be that, in abiding, what happens on the surface doesn't count; what's happening inside does.” There is nothing—not age or any other excuse—that should keep you from the powerful spiritual life-changing force to be found in surrender to Him. Abiding or remaining in Jesus Christ keeps you vital and supple for His purpose.

Do you abide and remain in Him? Do you long for His presence? Do you seek His truth and purpose? Thirst for His living water? Do you wait for His guidance and answer? Do you see with His eyes—hear with His ears? Do you understand with His spiritual mind instead of what your human mind perceives? Jesus' love disciplines sin and prunes self so His purpose can be realized in your life. Abiding is your response to His love.

More than anything, I want to remain vital and green until the day that my life here on earth is over. When He takes me home, I want my soul, having just been lifted from His work on earth, to enter heaven spiritually on fire with His love. My body may wear out, but my spirit can still sing! It is up to me to keep that connection of branch to vine alive and filled with His purpose!

© 2017 Lynn Lacher