With Valentine’s Day last week, and all the hype about romantic love, this time of year can be difficult for anyone who isn’t experiencing that type of relationship. It is something we all want, and believe would bring fulfillment. But if we were to take a survey, asking everyone in a relationship if they were 100% satisfied with the romantic love they were feeling from their partner, there would be a very small percent that said yes. And of those people, many would change their answer in a day, a week, or a year. What I’m trying to get at, is the fact that the feeling of love is fleeting. This could be a real downer, if not for the fact that real love is not just a feeling, it is the overflow of knowing The One, who is the very essence of love.

We have all heard the phrase, “God is love”. And when we hear something over and over, it often loses it’s meaning to us. But let’s give John 15 another look. If you have a moment, read through John 15:1-17. The entire chapter is about our relationship with God. First it talks about how we are to connect with Him by using the grapevine illustration as an example. I really appreciate this since my understanding always involves images, and when I can’t picture something it seems like a vague concept. But there is nothing vague about what He is telling us: He is specific about how we can experience the love He has for us, and allow it to flow through us. God is the source, and the gardener of life and life-giving love. Jesus is the vine that is connected to the source, and everything He has comes from the Father. We are to be firmly connected to Jesus, as fruit on the vine, to thrive in His life and allow it to flow through us.

There is a supernatural flow of love and friendship that we need to understand. It is like any other natural flow. The law of gravity flows downward, falling from any height to the ground. The flow of water through the dam produces electricity, that becomes a source for many of the things we do. The scripture often talks about living water, which is another illustration to help us understand this supernatural flow. Living water means it is water that is moving: it is flowing. The dead sea has living water coming into it but because it has no flow of it’s own, it becomes dead and nothing lives in it. The supernatural flow of God, is Him, us and then others. Any time we depart from this flow, we shift away from the abundant flow of love that is available to fill up the deep spaces in our heart. Today, let’s make sure we are deeply rooted in Him, so we have the love flowing out of us into all our relationships.

Growing on the Vine,

Tami