It’s easy for Christians to fall into a rut: Church is a thing you do, prayer is a box to check, and faith seems far from “the real world.” This fall we let Jesus himself confront our ruts. “Do you believe this?” he asks (Jn. 11:26).
To believe in Jesus is to experience him. It’s more than logic, argument, and doctrine. It is intimate knowledge of God himself. This fall, let Jesus himself speak to you in his seven “I AM” statements in the gospel of John. How is he changing you? What response is he inspiring in you? To believe in him changes everything.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Ponder:
Today, ponder the I AM statement: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Find, or think about, a plant with branches. Consider all the parts: vine or trunk, branches, leaves, fruit, etc. Ponder what it means to abide in Jesus as a branch remains in a vine. Ponder what fruit Christ wants you to bear.
Meditation:
“I am the Bread of Life” by Malcolm Guite
Where to get bread? An ever-pressing question
That trembles on the lips of anxious mothers,
Bread for their families, bread for all these others;
A whole world on the margin of exhaustion.
And where that hunger has been satisfied
Where to get bread? The question still returns
In our abundance something starves and yearns
We crave fulfillment, crave and are denied.
And then comes One who speaks into our needs
Who opens out the secret hopes we cherish
Whose presence calls our hidden hearts to flourish
Whose words unfold in us like living seeds
Come to me, broken, hungry, incomplete,
I Am the Bread of Life, break Me and eat.
Prayer
Jesus, you said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” I am nothing without you. Be my source. Fill me with life so that I may grow and produce fruit that is pleasing to you. Amen.
Benediction
Bless us, O God the Father, who has created us.
Bless us, O God the Son, who has redeemed us.
Bless us, O God the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies us.
O blessed Trinity, keep us in body, soul, and spirit unto everlasting life. Amen.