Mama was so excited! A volunteer watermelon plant was coming up around the wooden stand the garbage can sat on. She took Daddy out to see the dark green vine and the little watermelon that was hiding under the leaves.
Every time we pulled in the driveway, she exclaimed about her hopes of eating the surprising watermelon that grew all on its own.
The melon grew quickly, Mama noticing it getting bigger and rounder. She kept her eye on it making sure to water it well during the hot weather.
Daddy kept a close watch, too.
Finally the day came that she wanted Dad to come help her cut the watermelon free from the vine and bring it in to cool it before cutting it.
Obligingly he came.
But when Mama reached down to cut the melon free, she found it was free already. It was not attached to the vine at all!
Daddy couldn’t help letting the joke he had played on her slip! He wanted her to have her watermelon, but the little one on the vine had died. He had been buying small to big watermelons and stashing them among the vines in the exact same place so Mama would think her vine was bearing fruit.
“Awe, Bill Ellard!” She exclaimed with a smile, giving him a good natured slap on the arm. “You fooled me!” And she was still smiling as they brought the watermelon in the house to eat.
Daddy made it seem like the vine was producing the best watermelon around, but it was not. The vine only grew leaves.
The Bible compares being in Christ to a vine being in connection the branch. John 15:4-5 gives the account of Jesus talking to His followers, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.”
If we in living faith stay steadfastly in Christ and His Words, we will always be renewed and fed by Christ who is in God. As the nutrients flow from the roots of a plant, to the vine, and then out in to the branches; so we are fed by God and Jesus Christ as if we were the branches on the plant! Isn’t that an amazing picture?
Does the branch worry? No. Does the branch refuse to take in the life giving nutrients from the vine? No. Does the branch respond to the vine by doing what is inherent in the branch -- to produce fruit? Yes!
As we live in union with Jesus Christ we have the help of the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit of the spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. . .” From Galatians 5:22-23
Check yourself; are you trying to grow and live without a connection to the vine?
