Much Is Given

For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more. Luke 12:48

Whoop, the pressure is on! For those of us given 60 years and more of life, much will be expected with those much given years. What happened to that bit about enduring to the end? Now I have to present a big resume of my good deeds or else? For those of us questioning whether we have done enough with the much we have been given:

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. John 15:5

Without Jesus, we can do nothing. So, in place of a focus on piling up the deeds, perhaps we should work on not being without our Lord? And I see that we are to abide in Him in order to bear this fruit.

The first quote from the scriptures is part of a verse and the second is an entire verse of about the same length. Does one outweigh the other? We can get into a game of batting quotes from the Bible back and forth trying to find the one that 'slams' the other person into submission. Or we can each one take up the Word of God and enter into prayer with Him to find out what to do and where to go as we walk with our Lord. As we can see from His words, lots of effort might impress our fellows, but if it is not connected to the True Vine we are accomplishing nothing.

Rejoice in your connection to Jesus!

Bucky