I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. John 15:5 (KJV).

REFLECT:
As we navigate through life, we will realize that there are things that would commonly want to hinder, hamper or limit our progress to a certain degree in certain areas of our lives.

We all know that it is practically impossible for anything living to stay alive without the oxygen we get from the air we breathe. Without the air, our life support may be cut off incapacitating our ability to function in the way we ought to.

Apart from not having air to survive, other things could incapacitate and hamper our progress in life. These could border on things that may concern our health, psychological, mental, and emotional well-being, material wealth, and just our general comfort.

All of these hindrances more often than not have deep spiritual roots. Such roots are allowed to grow and take hold of our lives because of –

i. Unrepentant sin, which we need to pay attention to, and sincerely repent of so that God can heal and make us whole- 2 Chronicles 7:14″If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”(KJV).

ii. Lack of knowledge. Many times, we do not inform ourselves about the word of God. We refuse to want to study God’s word specifically to know what the Lord is saying to us. We tend to shy away from allowing the Holy Spirit to teach us what God wants us to know about specific details of our lives or meanings in the Word that He tries to bring across to us. Hosea 4:6″
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.”(KJV).

iii. Laziness. A good number of us are extremely lazy to do things ourselves. Rather we would prefer to solicit the services of someone else to tell us what God wants us to hear, do or say. We are a generation that has become so lazy to find out and pay attention to things for ourselves especially when it comes to spiritual matters “He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.”Proverbs 10:4(KJV)

Carelessness and indifference. Other times we do not even care about things happening in our lives. We would prefer to believe the age-old lies of the devil supported by culture and tradition telling us that nothing can be done about certain situations or circumstances, rather than believing God for who He is and what He says He can do. Colossians 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (KJV).

iv. Pridefulness and Self conceitedness. A lot of us tend to dwell in the pride of our abilities and meager achievements, rather than putting our trust in God’s abilities. We feel that the little knowledge, understanding, or gains we have acquired were primarily by our efforts or strength. “He that trusteth in his riches shall fall but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.” Proverbs 11:28(KJV).

v. Partial or Complete disconnect from God. This fifth point we would notice cannot be avoided, especially if we have allowed ourselves to be affected by all of the previous points mentioned above. At this point, it would be difficult to avoid such a huge disconnect from God and His ways. This is bound to happen when we give ourselves over to everything mentioned above.

At this point, we stop trusting, believing, and abiding in the Lord. We have allowed other things to clutter our lives making it impossible for us to bear the fruits God desires to see grow in us for Kingdom advancement.

Like our Bible verse for today warns that when we stop abiding in the Vine, which is Jesus, eventually we will stop producing the fruits expected of us, and why is this? The reason is that we will very soon realize that we can never do or achieve anything good on our own. The roots we have allowed to grow in us will begin to show up in different ways hindering and limiting our progress in life.

If we must see ourselves bear much fruit and prosper in the Kingdom of God, we must strive to make the effort as much as possible to abide and remain in Jesus our true Vine.

Ebimobo W. Obasi

PLEASE PRAY ALONG:

The Grace To Abide In Jesus.

Dear LORD JESUS, thank You for being my right source of nourishment so that I can produce the right kind of fruit that you so require. Please help me to focus on the things that you want for my life. When I am distracted, please redirect my attention back to you and give me the grace to always abide and remain in you. JESUS, I ask this in Your MIGHTY NAME AMEN.