Is Jesus Your Cup Of Tea?
Is Jesus your Cup of Tea?
By Machelle McDowell
Have you ever heard this quote, “Life is like a cup of tea…it’s all in how you make it?” A tea bag is not only filled with flavor but can teach us much about abiding in Christ!
This week our church is spending time in the book of John, specifically John 15 and it left me steeping over the question, “What does it mean to abide in Christ?”
In John 15 Jesus is teaching the disciples about what it looks like to have life in Him after He departs. He is preparing them for how to abide in Him without his physical presence.
The beauty of this passage is that the message was not only meant for the disciples of that day but for us as well!
Vs 4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”
We abide in Him through His word and He abides in us through the comforter that He sent for us that is available for every Christian, His holy spirit.
Jesus uses the metaphor of the vine and the vinedresser. In vs 2, Jesus points straight to the pruning shears! He says, “Every branch in me that does not bear fruit will be taken away, AND every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”
Christians, we must endure seasons of pruning in our lives to become the most fruitful that we can be!
Vs 4: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.”
This scripture takes me back to the tea bag! We have been drinking a lot of hot tea at the office lately and I have been experimenting with a few techniques on how to prepare the perfect cup of tea! LOL
I have learned that you will never know how strong the tea bag is until you let it sit in hot water. The longer it sits the more flavor seeps from the tea bag.
Our strengths come from the difficulties we encounter. When do we abide in Christ the most? When we are in hot water! Right? That makes us at our strongest.
Now get this….One technique I tried was to dip the bag in an out of the hot water and when I thought it was strong enough, I laid the tea bag aside. Bad method! You don’t get the full flavor of the tea by using this method.
Christians, we use this same technique in our Spiritual lives sometimes. When we pop in and out of church when it is convenient followed by dipping in and out of scripture and not abiding in Jesus every day….it effects the work of Christ in our lives. This makes us weak. There is nothing worse than a weak cup of tea!
We cannot withstand the difficulties of life using this method. It is impossible to abide in Christ in such an inconsistent manner.
This is what happens to us when we try to do life on our own. We end up with a weak cup of tea…..a weak Christian.
If you want to be a fruitful Christian, learn what it means to truly abide in Him! Is Jesus your cup of tea?
“Abide in me, and I in you.”
The best part of waking up is JESUS in your cup!
Scripture guidance in how to abide in Christ:
John 15:4-9
John 8:31
2John 1:9
Galatians 2:20