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My Vine Dresser


Sometimes I wonder if we throw around the warnings, "Make sure you read your Bible," and "Stay in the Word," because those are actions we can measure in one another.  You might as well tell someone "Make sure you go to church," so that they appear to be saved in your book. 

 I'm not here to start a rebellion, nor discount the spiritual discipline, but I feel the impulse to warn sisters of faith in the same way, and the words just seem...so...so, lifeless.  Now I must ask myself, what did Jesus command?  Perhaps the better admonition should be, "Abide in the Vine."  Abiding is ongoing, and life-giving.  It is in this statement that we allow the activity of the Holy Spirit to do all that He wants with us--however scary that might seem to us control freaks!  Let me not limit God's work to something I can control.  This abiding does in fact include Scripture reading, savoring, and soaking, as well as:
Repenting

 Crying

 Delighting

 Singing songs, 
                    hymns, 
                              and spiritual songs

 FORGIVING one another

 And, though not limited to, living life to the full.  

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