Thursday, November 1, 2007

John 15:1-17

+ So, here's the thing: there's a lot of ways that seem right to a man... A lot of paths that look like salvation - wholeness, healing, and everything you were meant to be - but at the end of the day, they're nothing but empty promises

Dead-ends and Dry wells.

I'm the true vine; the real source, the wellspring of life and love and song that you've been built for. I'm the voice... when all you've heard up 'till now has been the echo.

Remain in me. Send down your roots and drink deeply in this soil. Remain in me - A branch, once cleft, finding itself grafted, reunited, reinvigorated - amazingly and undeniably alive... Alive again.

Remain in me. Outside this vine is death; dryness, disconnection and discarded things - lit up, perhaps, for a moment... a flash of light, a moment of warmth, and then nothing but ashes.

Will you waste yourself; spent in every direction but life? My father knows something about productive sacrifice.

When he bids a person come, he bids them come and... die?

At the hand of the gardener... death for life; surrender for freedom - sacrificing those things that do not matter for that which truly does.

Remain in me... bear my fruit. From the overflow of what I would pour into you, may you flood this place with love and life. Connect the hose, turn on the tap... and see what happens.

Broken open and poured out - I will do this for you. And, as the father sends me, so I send you.

My life for you, and yours for this world.

Because that's love. This is love.
Because that's love. THIS is love.

Friends, may you love one another.

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