Words of Grace

By Rev. Mahlon Nevel

Jesus often used illustrations to teach Biblical truths, He painted word pictures to help his disciples understand spiritual things.

In John 15 he described his Father as the vinedresser of a vineyard. (v.1) The work of the vinedresser was to prune the branches so that the branches Would bear more fruit. (v.2)

Jesus pictured himself as the vine, and he pictured his disciples as the branches that grow from the vine. (v.5)

“I am the vine,” he said to them, “and you are the branches.” Then he went on to say this: “for without me you can do nothing.

Without Jesus, apart from Jesus. Picture a branch on the ground and away from the vine. That was what Jesus wanted the disciples to see in their mind.

And may we take this to heart as well. What are we without Jesus? Nothing.

What can we do without Jesus? Nothing.

The apostle Paul, in Ephesians 2:12, writes about what it is like to be “without Christ” and also “without God in the world.” Those who are without the Lord are without hope,” “having no hope.”

But to have the Lord Jesus is to have hope. Titus 2:13 calls him “that blessed hope.”