Going it Alone
John 15:5 I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I to you, you will produce plenty of fruit. But separated from me you won’t be able to do anything.
On the one hand, Jesus said that following Him, being one of His disciples, was never going to be easy. Absolutely. But on the other, time and time again, we end up working against Him, making things ten times harder for ourselves.
Have you ever tried to go it alone? Sure … you believe in Jesus, you love God, and so you set out on your journey and all of a sudden the going gets tough. So you just work harder at it – and harder and harder and harder, until this whole thing of following Jesus ends up grinding you into the ground.
The truth is that you and I can’t achieve much on our own. Perhaps we can do clever things, amazing things even, but when it comes to things of eternal significance, we can’t do those on our own. In fact, this is what Jesus said about that very thing:
John 15:5 I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I to you, you will produce plenty of fruit. But separated from me you won’t be able to do anything.
That makes a lot of sense, although we do all end up at some point labouring away in our own strength, wondering why things aren’t going the way we’d planned.
I have so many things in my life that are out there way beyond my control – things that I want to achieve for God’s glory, things that I’ve worked so hard at. But as time goes on, I’m learning that the closer I draw to Jesus, the more fruit I’m able to bear. The more I try to go it alone, the less fruit I bear.
So how about you? Are you trying to go it alone?
Separated from me, said Jesus, you won’t be able to do anything
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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