I often find myself thinking of how great the Lord is. How he made the branch and it’s tree, and the trunk and its root, the root and its seed. He made all things good, thus all that’s good comes from him.

Think about the most beautiful thing you can remember. For me, I remember this lake in Colorado. It somehow wasn’t frozen in the midst of the snow, and amongst the trees and mountains, it made for a beautiful picture. Knowing the Lord now, I marvel even more at the picture. Not because it looks any better, but because I know that all that, came from him. The mountains, the trees, the lake and the snow, all from God. The creator and the creation.

Then I look at us. Although humans are not horrific, we don’t make others marvel quite like the beauty found in nature. This shouldn’t be true. We’re made in the image of God, we ought to shine greater than anything else. But still, we don’t, at least in most cases.

My guess? Nature doesn’t have free will. They don’t have the opportunity to not flower and not flourish, they are simply branches to the Lord’s tree. The only way they stop flourishing is by human hands. We have free will. We don’t have to be connected to the Father. But we definitely can be.

Free Will

One of the most controversial conversation points in Christianity is the concept of free will. Most don’t really understand it, some don’t believe in it, and others believe in it a little too much. It is something that seems to have always been in question, but something that shouldn’t have ever been.

You’ll often hear Christians say something along the lines of “it was God’s will” or “God works in mysterious ways”. Those typically follow some type of tragedy and are used to explain why something happened. I don’t want to be hateful, but simply put, those statements are biblically false.

To believe that a death in the family is God’s will, or that he is somehow making people die for some greater purpose puts a trait on the Lord that cannot be overlooked. He is a good God, and to bring death and pain would certainly take away some sort of goodness. We cannot put away morals to convince ourselves that God’s plans will automatically come to pass. It’s not his will for tragedy, but for us to have “a future and a hope”(Jeremiah 29:11). His will does not automatically come to pass.

His will, in fact, is for us to complete through him. He gave us a mission, and it is ours to do. We, as the body of Christ, are called to bring his will to fruition. That will only come from being a branch in his tree.

Bad things come when we exercise our free will to pursue our own will. Good things come when we pursue doing the Lord’s will through him.

Becoming a Branch

Fortunately for us, we have a great opportunity to be connected to God. We have his Spirit. That’s the greatest luxury in the world! Even Jesus said it would better for us to have the Spirit than himself! That alone tells you it’s very great! Therefore, we are already, in some sense, connected to the Lord, like a branch to a tree.

However, I believe that it’s incredibly clear that we are not all truly connected. Not every Christian is flourishing and sprouting like the trees and plants we see in nature. Not every Chrisitan has grown more than a stump of a branch or has grown stronger than even a twig.

Like a tree branch, we can all break and snap off the tree, and we can all grow stronger from the tree. Also like a tree branch, we cannot grow without the tree, which is the Lord. We must be connected, and in order to be stronger and flourish more, we must be connected stronger. There is a verse that I love about this.

“Remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you” (Romans 11:18).

We can be supported by the tree and can grow and flourish from the tree (that is the Lord, of course).

A Branch Grafted In

To further understand how to grow closer and stronger, we should first start to understand why and how we are connected in the first place.

The reason that we can be connected, is because we were grafted into the tree. Let me explain.

There are many definitions but according to Dictionary.com, grafting simply means “to insert” something like a plant or a bud into something else, so it’ll grow from that. I like to imagine a branch simply being planted into the side of a tree. This process joins the two and allows the bud or plant to grow from the thing it was grafted into.

This can be found in scripture as well. Romans 11 tells us that we have been “cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree” (Romans 11:24). Of course, that is not to be taken literally, but metaphorically. We have been cut from the rest of the world and grafted into the body of Christ. We have been picked from the despair that we were in and connected to the King of kings. In other words, we have been brought back to creator. In fact, we have been woven with the creator. We’re not a tree next to the tree that is God. We are a part of the tree with God. A mere branch, yet a connected one.

Because we are merely grafted in, it’s certainly possible to be disconnected from the Lord. This is why the same chapter gives us advice as to how to do that. We can find all these pieces of advice in Romans 11:20.

Stand Fast Through Faith

The first advice we are given in this passage is to stand fast through faith. That is one of the most important parts of Christian living and really important to keeping connected to the Lord.

To stand fast through faith really means that we should stand firm in the Lord. Standing fast easily means that we should stand quickly, it should be our response. Through faith tells us how we are to do that. Meaning that to stand fast through faith means that our way to stand firm quickly should be in faith in God.

Do Not Become Proud

One of the ways that we can stop being a branch and can sort of “snap off” of our relationship with God is to become proud.

I once heard that pride at its deepest level, is self-centeredness. When we’re too proud to admit we’re wrong, we’re thinking about ourselves. Oftentimes, when we are in relationship with God, we can become self-centered. This hurts our relationship and connection to the Lord very much. Like I said before, we have a creator-creation relationship with the Lord. To be a branch on the Lord’s tree, we must not be centered on ourselves, but on God.

To give you some extra weight, “where there is strife, there is pride” (Proverbs 13:10).

Fear the Lord

To fear the Lord is the last piece of advice we’re given on this. It’s so crucial and I’ve actually heard it said that the fear of the lord is the greatest roadblock in relationship with Jesus. Not because we shouldn’t fear the Lord, but because we should, and many don’t.

It probably sounds weird to hear that we need to fear the Lord. You’re taught all throughout church to come to the Lord. That he will take your heavy burdens away. Nothing will separate you from his love. All these statements showing God’s great character, and his great love for us.

So, why should we fear him? After all, does a branch fear it’s tree? Or a tree its seed? We know the answer to those are no, but we should still fear the Lord. It’s just a different kind of fear.

To fear the Lord means to fear being away from him. To want to be with him and around him, wanting to be in his presence.

If the branch could really feel fear, I do believe it would have a fear of the tree (as weird as that sounds). The branch cannot grow without its tree. It can’t be alive without the tree. It must fear the tree because without the tree it would die, and it must be with the tree.

That is how we must be with the Lord. We should want to be with the Lord, and fear being without him. That is, because without relationship, connection, and communion with the Lord, we die.

The Tree

With all this talk about the branch, I think it’s important to now talk about the tree.

If you’ve been confused about all this tree nature talk, we, as Christians, are the branch, and the Lord is the tree. That is, because like a branch, we are connected to the Lord like a branch to a tree and have a very special relationship with him.

We share a creator-creation relationship with the Lord. He created us and created us very special. We are not just his creation, but his children, whom he loves and cares for. Psalms 40 even tells us that he “takes thought” for us.

A tree creates the branch, yet the tree doesn’t think about the branch. It may care for it partially by providing growth and life to the branch, but it doesn’t choose to. The Lord, even when we are weak and feeble, provides support, life, and growth, yet still thinks on us. I would say that this makes the relationship we have with the Lord a very special one.

Staying Close to the Tree

We’ve discussed the branch, the tree, and how they stay close, but not necessarily why they should.

There is the obvious reason. The branch must stay close in order to stay alive, which we touched on. If it’s not connected, then it would fall away and die. Likewise, we would do the same with the Lord. But that is not the only reason. Here are a few of the reasons why we should stay close to the Lord.

• He supports us.

The Lord is our strength. He gives us his spirit and that spirit is one of the greatest ways we can have strength. He is also a helper, a deliverer, a guide, and more! To put it frankly, the Lord, when we allow him to, can be our only source of support and we would be better off.

• He helps us grow.

The Lord helps us to clean house when we become a Christian. He lets us know what to work on and gives us some helpful aid and guidance through the sanctification process. He wants to see us grow, because when we grow, we can do more for the kingdom!

• It is the way it was intended.

We were always meant to be close with the Lord. In fact, that was one of the main reasons that Jesus came! So that we could be reconciled to him! How cool is that!

The creator-creation relationship always works best when the creation is close to the creator. The branch was always intended to be close to the tree. We were always supposed to be connected to the Lord, meaning it must be the best thing to do!

Final Thoughts

This whole tree and branch talk may have been confusing, but overall, there is a very important thing to take from this whole discussion. Be close to the Lord. Be close to your creator. That is one of the greatest things that we can do.

I believe that by following the steps that we talked about in this post, you can grow closer to the Lord. For a quick recap, the steps that we talked about were to:

• Stand fast through faith
• Do not become proud
• Fear the Lord

I encourage you all. Follow these steps in your daily walks with Christ, and you will find yourself getting so much closer, and seeing how much of a blessing it can be.

Have a great week!