Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Saturday, 8 November 2014 "Remain in me, and I will remain in you"

Leawood, Kansas, United States - The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Daily Guide grow. pray. study. for Saturday, 8 November 2014 "Remain in me, and I will remain in you"
Daily Scripture: John 15:1-8
Reflection Question:
In Jesus' day, Israelites often pictured themselves as vines in a vineyard God tended (cf. Psalm 80:8-18, Isaiah 5:1-7). Jesus adapted and expanded that image. When his followers stayed united to him like branches to a vine, Jesus said, they would love each other as he loved them. This sermon series asks how you will measure your life. Jesus suggested that the answer is simple (but not easy): measure it the way God does. Produce fruit that brings glory to God.
Scholar William Barclay said some of Jesus' followers "are lovely fruit-bearing branches of himself; others are useless because they bear no fruit. Who was Jesus thinking of when he spoke of the fruitless branches?...He was thinking of Christians whose Christianity consisted of profession without practice, words without deeds; he was thinking of Christians who were useless branches, all leaves and no fruit." Spend some time in prayer today asking God to guide you in bearing fruit, perhaps in an area where your spiritual life to date has been mostly leaves.
Family Activity:
As a family, talk about how you can bring hope, joy and comfort to others. Discuss each person's unique gifts and abilities. How can those be used to serve those who are sad or lonely? How can those same gifts be combined with those of other family members to serve and help? Using construction paper, create the symbol of a heart. On it, write or draw the gifts of each person. Also write or draw about how they can be used to serve others. Pray together, asking God to help guide you to use your ideas and gifts. Thank God for giving them to you. Display your family's "heart" as a reminder to share God's love, and to measure your life by how well you love.
Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, keep me connected to you today and every day. Let me be a channel through which your divine love can flow freely to bless the lives of other people around me. Amen.
Insight from Rev. Penny Ellwood
Rev. Penny Ellwood is the campus pastor at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection Blue Springs.
It would probably be a stretch to call myself a gardener, but in the spring I always get the itch to fill my empty pots and garden spaces with flowers. I don’t generally plant anything that requires pruning, but I do spend time deadheading the flowers in my pots. Deadheading sounds a little ominous, but it is simply a term used in gardening, which describes the practice of trimming off the spent flowers. This practice not only tidies up the plants and the overall look of the garden but, more importantly, ensures the maximum bloom time.
Nearly all flowering plants benefit from at least a little deadheading. When blooms start to fade, brown, curl, or otherwise look unattractive, that’s the time to trim them off. Regular deadheading directs energy into stronger growth and more flowers. Once the flowers are pollinated, seed heads, pods or capsules form at the expense of further growth and flower development. Deadheading encourages more flower development, and it prevents plants with lots of petals from scattering debris all over when the petals drop.
Pruning goes a little deeper than deadheading by reaching past the dead plant material to remove live portions of a plant. Done right, pruning can remove damaged and diseased areas which help prevent insect and decay organisms from entering the plant. It can allow more air and sunlight to reach the plant resulting in fewer disease problems. Pruning can also remove competing branches so that there is one strong dominant branch or vine feeding the rest of the plant, strong enough to withstand the elements and not be destroyed.
In this passage, Jesus described himself as that dominant vine which supports and nourishes those who chose to be united with him. God is the gardener who deadheads and prunes away the disease, allowing for the development and growth of fruit. The fruits, in this case, are acts of love, compassion and justice-seeking like those Jesus demonstrated in his life. As we remain a part of Christ we will remain branches that produce these good fruits of love and grow in relationship with our God and one another.
This week we talked in one of my small groups about how hard it is to set aside our own self-interests or injuries in order to love as God would have us. We cling  to fears and worry and have trouble giving up those things that aren’t healthy for us.
I’m grateful that we have a God who loves us so much that he’s willing to take the shears to those places and things that would cause us harm and allow us to harm others. I know how easy it is to just let a garden go wild. It takes work to deadhead and prune. And though we might experience momentary pain as God makes these cuts, we can take comfort in knowing that these are temporary wounds, which will heal and allow us to grow stronger and more beautiful when we remain in him. What a blessing it is to be a branch attached to the vine, Jesus Christ!
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