It has cooled off here in the mountains so I have started working outside again. I love it! Fall is such a lovely time in our area and the cool air just makes me want to stay out in all the beauty and soak it in.

Phil got me a new tool – a battery operated hedge trimmer. It has been so easy to use and I have been trimming up a storm. Some of our shrubs haven’t been attended to in so long that I had to trim in stages. I would cut back a bit, gather the trimmings so I could see what was left , then cut some more. The end result is plants that look neater, but are also healthier.

The old dead stuff has been cut away.

As I was doing this work in our yard, I felt a Spiritual lesson being impressed on me. (This is often the case with me – I feel God’s presence so closely in my garden)

What old, dead stuff am I clinging to?

In thinking about this, I realized that we humans can cling tenaciously to traditions, beliefs, and even forms of worship that no longer bring life to us spiritually. That is because once a branch or limb is disconnected from the trunk or stem, it starts to die.

If our spiritual life is not connected to Jesus, the True Vine, what may have once been spiritually beneficial will soon die.

In John 15:1-4 Jesus is instructing His disciples just before He will be taken to die on the cross. Jesus wants these 12 men He has poured His life into to REMAIN connected to Him, even as He dies, is buried, and rises again.

So, Jesus says –

15 “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. ³ You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

The challenge for me is to remain connected to Jesus, and allow Him to cut out anything that won’t produce fruit.