Some days, do you feel like you’re holding it all together with emotional duct tape? Other days, you feel nothing at all—just drifting, tired, and unsure why. When my life is like this, it makes me wonder: maybe it’s not me that’s falling apart… maybe it’s the structure around me that’s not strong enough to hold what life is handing me. What’s holding you up? Read on…
The right structure is essential for anything to be secure, long-lasting, and productive. People also need the right structure to be healthy and productive. Ever hung out with someone without structure in their life? Ever been in or on a shaky structure? What about a business that has an enemic organizational structure? That’s why structure matters.
The Trellis is Significant
For a vine and its branches to productively bear much fruit, what does it need? A trellis!
The vine needs a support structure to lift it off the ground and direct it toward the light, give it direction, and give it room to breathe. Without a trellis’s support, the vine would only bear a fraction of the fruit it’s capable of growing. And the little it does bear would be highly vulnerable to disease, damage, and dangerous predators.
You’ve seen churches and ministries that were/are vulnerable. We all have.
Ever feel that way in life, vulnerable? What does your support structure look like? Is it lifting you up, giving you direction, allowing you to breathe, and protecting you from being vulnerable?
Grapevines are climbers. You and I are too. We have it designed in us to climb, to be productive, to produce fruit. The problem is, we don’t have the support in place, and maybe we are not even connected to the vine.
Whatever Scott!
“Awe Scott, I don’t need that. Look at what I’ve accomplished!”
Yes, that’s the question, “What have you accomplished?” It’s quite simple. If you are not connected to the Vine, all of what you have accomplished is vanity.
The branches of the vine sprawl on the ground without something to guide and support them—a trellis, arbor, or pergola. This leaves them vulnerable. Tangled. Unproductive. You may be connected to the Vine, but leaving yourself vulnerable. Maybe without knowing it.
Yes, you look good on the outside. You are paying yourself the big bucks, living the high life, and looking good. But inside, you are an empty shell, drying up and withering. Barely connected to the vine, ready to fall off, be picked up, and burnt with the rest of the dead branches. All because you are not connected and have no support. There is no flow of life going through you. After all, you can do it yourself.
It’s not that the vine isn’t strong. No, because Jesus is the vine. It’s just that He has designed you to grow with support. What’s holding you up? We simply need to follow the rule of life.
The Rule of Life
What if I told you I have the secret to life? The Silver Bullet. The Secret Sauce. The answer to it all.
The secret?
“The Rule of Life!”
What is this rule? Notice it’s not plural. It is not, rules of life. It is simply the rule of life.
What is interesting about this word rule is the root of the word. In the original Latin, the word is regula (regulation, regular, rule, ruler). And it literally means, “straight piece of wood.”
What is interesting about this is that some argue the word was used in the ancient Mediterranean in speaking of a trellis in a vineyard.
Okay, so I am not the greatest at math, but I think I have the basics down enough to get the answer correct here. The RULE of life, translated into a support structure, hence a trellis…
John 15:4-7 ESV
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Jesus is The Rule of Life
What do we do with this “Answer” Rule of Life? We abide in it. We abide in Him. Abide in Jesus. How do you abide in Jesus? You become His apprentice. We abide in (walk, go, be with) Him.
As we ‘Be with Him’ we ‘Become like Him’ and then we simply do as He did.
So Jesus is the Vine, which is the source of life. He gives life, sustains it, and causes it to be fruitful. The Rule of Life, or the trellis if you will, is used to abide in Him. That is the structure, by abiding in Him, that allows the branches (that’s us) to intertwine with the support that is provided. That support is all the various practices and connections to Him, the body, needed for us to be productive and produce fruit.
Abide
- Be With Him
- Become Like Him
- Do As He Did
Challenge of the Week
Look at your everyday life and see what needs to change. What’s holding you up off the ground? Do you have the trellis (The Rule of Life) in place to hold you up, guide you, direct you, allow you to breathe, and to produce good fruit in your life? Abide in Jesus. So be it!
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