The point
of the Christian life is not to do. It is to be. And so I must ask - not,
"What do I do?" but, "What am I?" To find out necessitates
a mental separation from doing. I am tired of doing. When I am an idolater and
find my joy in my performance, I am so miserable, for my sin-stricken flesh can
never meet my expectations. I threaten my identity every time I let myself
down. What sin! What I do must cease to define, in my mind, who I am.
What am I?
Forever a fraud? If my performance defines my identity, then I have no
identity, and I must then appear to others as something that I am not. Will I
forever be a sham, knowing that I am not a spiritual person, cringing when people
say I am, yet strangely afraid of having people think of me as I really am?
Both options are unbearable.
What am I?
My desire to do things for God will never be realized as God intends and plans
for it to be, as long as my identity is tied to my performance. My service will
be of a sickly, anemic, half-guilty, ever-longing nature, because I will never
serve God as I think I ought.
What am I?
Forever a guilt-haunted, never-resting, performance-driven Christian, unable to
get over how I produce (in a picture) a few shriveled raisins, instead of the massive bunches
of grapes of the Promised Land?
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| Photo by Steve Ekblad SXC |
What am I? A branch, and rejoicing to be so. If I am a branch, I have no roots in and of myself, and no resources to produce any fruit whatsoever. (Turns out that I was imagining the raisins.) If I were to be cut off from the Vine, I would die at once. Those Promised Land grapes are produced only through the Vine – the One in Whom we live. In Him there is rest from my flesh. In Him is full identity. In Him is freedom from bondage to the opinions of others, for in Him I can be genuine, unafraid to appear as I really am – clothed in Christ. In Him is joy, power, and fruitful service. In Him is freedom from the fear of failure, for Christ can never fail. May the Vinedresser graft me more closely into the Vine, so that His abundant life can flow though me.
“Abide in
Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides
in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are
the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without
Me you can do nothing. …These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may
remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:4-5,11).
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