TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

What else can we learn from the colander illustration?

Good morning sir!

Welcome to day 7!  Hope you were in church today.  Wow, a whole week has gone by.  Join with me in prayer:  “Lord, You are the Vine.  I am the branch.  I want to abide in You so I will bear fruit!  For every branch connected to the vine is designed to bear fruit!  Amen!”

Going a bit deeper with colander illustration.  When we submerge our life in Christ, water flows in and out through all the holes.  But unfortunately, we can plug certain holes.  This is like saying to the Holy Spirit, ‘You can have this area and that area but this one area, I reserve for myself.  I’ve got that covered.’

Do you remember when Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity as the new state religion?  He had to have all his soldiers baptized too.  So en masse they went into the water, but they held their right hand, their sword hand, above the water.  What did that signify?  My sword hand is mine.  I will keep control over this so I can still fight and kill.  And we can do the same thing concerning our submission to Christ. 

“And the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful!”  Mark 4:19

Those three things are hole plugs and no one is immune from this.  Stopping the flow of Holy Spirit nourishment will begin to choke Him out and unfruitfulness will begin.

The whole trend of the triune Godhead is to get us to be ‘sharers of the divine nature!’  2 Peter 1:4. This is abiding.  This is dependence.  This is submerging our whole life into His nature, so that He flows in and out and we look more and more like Jesus!   Amen!