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| Green Lake, Wisconsin |
Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.
This gets echoed by Jesus in John 15:4-5, where Jesus says:
Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
The Jesus-life is about attachment. Henri Nouwen has said that the basic question of the spiritual life is: Who do you belong to?
Some of us just left a wonderful conference. But the conference itself is not our attachment. Jesus is. The conference should serve as a means to increasing our Jesus-attachment. We cannot live without Jesus; we can live without conferences.
Trust in the Lord (not in a conference).
Send your roots to the river of God.
Remain in Christ (don't stay at the conference).
Attachment to Jesus happens now (even though the conference is over).
The fruit-bearing life is the inexorable product of the ongoing abiding-in-Christ life.
Ongoing attachment to Jesus will free you from conference-addiction and co(nference)-dependency.
God and I have been conferring this morning. This is the human heart as the Everlasting Conference, with God as the main speaker.
