I am the vine; you are the branches.

As I write this I’m laughing at the Irony. It is gone 11pm on Thursday night, it’s been a busy week and I need to have this written for the newsletter by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is already a busy day at the end of a busy week, and I’m away for a conference on Saturday and still have the sermon to prepare. For all of us life is busy, we have so much to think about, there is so much to do, working, meetings, travelling, spending time with family, getting fit, staying fit, playing sports, taking time for our hobbies and interests, seeing friends, watching addictive boxsets and a host of other things. We seem to have less time and even more to do. It’s a sign of our times and culture rarely to make space for stillness, silence and rest. Its not that being busy is always a hardship, actually most of us gain satisfaction and enjoyment from it. From the youngest age we are taught that in most things in life there is a formula like this:

Effort + skills=Success. I don’t think any us of would disagree that working hard, and learning are good things and do lead to fulfilling and successful life and that is also honouring to God, who gave us this gift of life to do something with it. But is it healthy for our Spiritual life? Well our bible reading today says clearly No! Jesus gives us a new formula which is Abiding + pruning =Fruiting.

As a Christian you are wired for fruitfulness not busyness, and fruitfulness will only come as we Abide in Jesus. Abiding means growing and remaining deep in our intimacy and our relationship with Him, that needs time, consistency, and priority. Fruitfulness in life is a natural outflow of our closeness to Jesus.