“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser…Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”-Jesus, John 15
Do you see something unusual in this picture? This weeping willow tree in my back yard is exhibiting a phenomenon know as inosculation. The bottom branch actually grew back into the trunk further up in the tree. How did that happen?
When the branch was growing up, instead of going its own way, it worked its way back to the trunk. As the tree moved in the wind, the bark on the touching surfaces gradually abraded away as they rubbed against each other, exposing their cambiums, the growing part of the tree. This caused the branch to graft into the trunk as they expanded in diameter.
After observing this, I thought, what a great way to illustrate how to abide in Christ. When God gives us life and we begin to grow, we have a decision to make. We can hang out on our own and hope we will hold up under the winds of our tribulations or we can stay close to Jesus and abide in him, drawing on his strength to hold us up through the storms of life.
After trusting God for our salvation, many of us think that it’s all up to us now to obey and serve him. As Andrew Murray explains in his book, Abide in Christ,
“The idea they have of grace is this-that their conversion and pardon are God’s work, but that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the thought of a work that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs. They fail continually, and become hopeless; and the despondency only increases the helplessness.”
God doesn’t save us and then say, “OK, show me what you can do now!” The reason we try to do it on our own is that we have just enough natural abilities that lead us to think we are self-sufficient, so we tend to only call on God when we really need him. This is even more prevalent in our affluent society that makes our lives easier and gives us a false sense of security. But no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to follow God’s standards on our own. It’s just too hard without him. My slogan used to be “Do your best and trust God for the rest.” I’m beginning to see that I must trust him first. My tree taught me a valuable lesson!
It is such a wonderful mystery, how God is in us and we are in him and how he works through us. I don’t understand how he does it, but it’s good to know that:
God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious
riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
(Colossians 1:27)
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Dwell in His secret place 