APART FROM HIM, YOU CANNOT.

The Bible says Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. God is the vinedresser. We are connected to Christ. It is through Him that we are able to bear fruit. We are born of God. The Spirit of God resides in us teaching us all things. God’s greatest desire for His children is to be fruitful. He breathed life in us just as we see in the creation story. We exist because he formed us in His own spiritual personality and moral likeness and his first command was we should be fruitful. God was fruitful in all he did taking his image and likeness, that’s what we should also be.

 Just as a branch cannot produce on it’s on, we can also not produce if we decide to live life out of His will. Anyone cut off from this union with Christ cannot be fruitful in anything that he does; we ought to always strive to put our fellowship with Christ first before any other thing. So that we can have evidence of our faith in him through the fruits we produce. No man plants without expecting a harvest. That’s why God has established us here on earth so that we can bear him fruits. Anyone who desires to live out of the union with Christ withers and dies because that covering and protection over their lives is removed. Hence becomes an easy target for the enemy to destroy; because they are cut off from the vine which is their source. If we abide in Christ and Christ’s words abides in us, he has assured us that anything we ask in his name it will be done for us. That way, God will be glorified if we bear much fruit. If we do this our joy will be full, complete and overflowing.

When we look at King Ahab’s story, we see that he did not abide in Christ like his father David did. He disconnected himself by doing evil more than all the kings who were before him. He went further and even married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians. She was the chief priestess of the cult of Baal worship which dominated the entire city of Tyre. She introduced Baal worship to him and made him erect an altar for Baal in Samaria. It was during his reign that the heavens were shut and there was a severe drought for three and a half years. In his reign nothing significant happened in Israel. Later we see that the Lord sent a catastrophe on him that swept him away cutting off every male from him and made his descendants like the house of Baasha son of Ahijan because he provoked God to anger and made Israel sin. He later died and in the battle with the Aramians.

Ahab thought that he could rule Israel on his own without abiding to God’s word but he could not. King David abided in God’s laws and God granted him victory and established his reign.

These are great examples for us to learn from. If we choose to operate our businesses, careers, families or even leadership without abiding in God’s word, just like Ahab we will wither and eventually experience death. This which God has entrusted in our hands could easily experience hardships and eventually dissolution if not operated in God’s will.

 For us to encounter growth, expansion, fruitfulness in every area of our lives, we have to abide in Christ always. He has promised that if we are united with Him; we will be even more fruitful.