I am not a botanist but I do understand the process of grafting both in the natural and in the spiritual. In the natural you take a new bud or branch and and fasten to grape vine with the intent of it producing a new grape and as it begins to bear fruit you get a new grape with an new flavor. That’s a rather crude explanation but we all know how that process works in the spiritual. We are grafted into The Vine, Jesus, and as a result we will producing new fruit in our life as we draw life from Him. But I got to thinking about this picture and I saw it from a little different perspective.

If you consider our life as a natural stem or branch, at the moment we accept Jesus as our Lord and savior, God engrafts His Word (Jesus) into us and infuses that Word into our life. It then becomes the prime element in our being going forward and is the source of new fruit in our life. As a result we serve God because we love Him and want to, not because we have to. As a result of being grafted into the Word we find that obedience to the Word becomes as natural as sin was before we became part of The Vine and as we mature our character begins to change and transform.

Sometimes we view our spiritual growth  in the same way you build a house, adding one board at a time on the outside. But God doesn’t build a grape vine the same way nor does He build us that way. He builds us by adding one new layer from the heart on out into sweet fruit. It’s sort of like adding power in the natural world. Take electricity, which in its natural state is dangerous, and put it in a house, in a town, in car, etc. and it becomes a powerful tool producing value. So it is with the Word of God. We must graft it into our spirit, receive it and incorporate it into our life and then it becomes the power that will not only guide us going forward, it will produce the fruit that blesses others.

I like this verse in The Living Bible that sums up the blessing of being grafted into The Vine…

Eph 5:8-10 For though once your heart was full of darkness, now it is full of light from the Lord, and your behavior should show it! Because of this light within you, you should do only what is good and right and true. Learn as you go along what pleases the Lord.

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