I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.    John 15:15

I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens Me.  Philippians 4:13 HCSB

Our first scripture passage uses the analogy of a vine and branches. I have vines that weave their ways in between some of my trees. When I cut those vines loose they die. When they die, I throw them into my burn pile to be burned. John 15:6 tells us that those who do not remain in Him are just like vines that are cut away, wither and are burned. 

You may think that you have done well on your own, but let me tell you something, you didn’t do anything on your own. We don’t take our next breath without God’s approving of it. God gives us life. He’s the reason we are here. So to think that we are accomplishing great things on our own is a fallacy. Now you may not choose to accept Christ as your Savior and you may not choose to follow Him or imitate Him. He gives you free will to choose to do so or not do so. But that doesn’t make you independent, it simply makes you unwise. He gives us free will to sin and lead a sinful life if that’s the path we choose. 

When we accept Him as our Savior and choose to remain in Him and allow His Holy Spirit to remain in us, there is nothing we can’t do. This is because His power and His strength are supernatural. When we remain in Him and Him in us, we can draw from His power and His strength. We can go through things we never thought we could with Him by our side.

It seems as though it would be an easy choice. We all want to be powerful. We all want to be able to accomplish great things, right? But our pride sometimes gets in the way. Our pride tells us that we can do all things on our own. It tells us things like we don’t need anyone’s help. Our pride lies to us.

We need God every hour of every day. Sadly, it often takes some type of tragedy for us to understand this. There is an old saying that says, “You never run into an atheist in a fox hole.” When times get tough, people are more likely to turn to Jesus. I took many people to jail only to hear a day or two later how they had turned their life over to the Lord. Sadly, most of them took their lives back from the Lord as soon as they were released. Don’t we often do the same thing. We need the Lord desperately in times of trouble, but as soon as things start looking up, we’re good. We don’t need His help anymore.

David, was a prime example of needing the Lord. We met him as a young boy facing off against the giant, Goliath. He would be anointed king but would spend many years fighting Philistines and ducking and dodging King Saul who loved him one minute and wanted to kill him the next. In Psalm 18 David speaks of His need for God to protect and deliver him and how God came through for him.

I don’t know about you, but I have lived a life with no power. I have experienced that dramatic event that brought me to the Lord and I chose to stay. I chose to put my trust in Him. I was tired of the roller coaster of trusting in Him one minute and trying to take over the next.

God is there for us, but He never forces his power or His strength on us. We must choose to remain in Him. We can choose to be powerful in His strength or we can choose to be powerless in our own strength.

I spent many years lying to myself thinking I had it all under control. It was such a relief to give it all over to Him.

If you are lying to yourself thinking you have control, isn’t it time you stop. Isn’t it time you just give it all over to Him and trust Him with all you’ve got?

I made that decision almost 11 years ago and it is a decision that I have never regretted and I promise you won’t either.

Have a great day!