Abiding in Christ signifies a continuous, intimate communion with Him, drawing spiritual nourishment and strength as a branch draws life from the vine (John 15:4). Christian preaching often uses images of living plants or water to illustrate this vital, sustaining connection that enables growth and fruitfulness in the believer's life (John 15:5).
Continuous communion with God sustains a believer like a vine watered every moment.
Burnet declares, that, having known Leighton intimately for many years, he had never seen him in any other temper than that in which he would wish to live and die. One writing about Hewitson, said: “One thing struck me; he seemed to have no gaps, no intervals in his communion with God. I used to feel when with him, that it was being with a vine watered every moment.”
The ideal life receives blessings and refreshes others with moral fruitfulness.
In South America grows a species of the palm known there as “the rain-tree.” It is so called because of its remarkable power of abstracting moisture from the atmosphere and dropping it in copious and refreshing dew on the earth around it. In this way it makes an oasis of luxuriant vegetation where it flourishes.
Is not that the ideal life that gets and gives; that draws the good only to communicate it to others, so blessing the world with moral verdure and fruitfulness? (Text.)
A life receives joy and fruitfulness only when the channel for living water is open.
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As I passed down through India I saw two little rice-fields side by side. One was green and growing; the other was dead and dry. I looked for the cause. The great lake was full of water. There was no lack there. Into the one the living water was flowing, for the channel was open. The other was choked. Brother, is your life green and growing, fruitful and joyful, or barren and dry because the channel is choked?--G. S. EDDY, “Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” 1910.
Spiritual reservoirs equip a person for every emergency like a tortoise's water-sacks.
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One of the most interesting creatures of California’s great desert is the tortoise. Frequently a school of them, that we usually think of only in connection with water, are discovered afar out in the desert where water is scarce and difficult to obtain. Dissection shows that in a convenient place upon their body is located a pair of large water-sacks. These the owner fills with water as needed and in this way it is kept supplied.
The man who has acquired character and experience so that he has moral and spiritual reservoirs within is equipped for every emergency. (Text.)
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