{"id":88454,"date":"2025-07-07T11:16:44","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=88454"},"modified":"2025-07-07T11:17:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:17:56","slug":"without-me-you-can-do-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/without-me-you-can-do-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Without Me, You Can Do Nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<p>by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing<\/em>&#8221; (John 15:5).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>Without Jesus, we cannot be saved from a useless and aimless life. With Jesus, we can.<\/li>\n<li>Without Jesus, we cannot ask God for forgiveness and get it. With Jesus, we can.<\/li>\n<li>Without Jesus, we cannot even pray to God, and God respects our prayers. With Jesus, we can.<\/li>\n<li>Without Jesus, we cannot overcome the power of the devil to get us to sin and set us on the road to hell with him. With Jesus, we can.<\/li>\n<li>Without Jesus, we cannot bear fruit and have spiritual life within us. With Jesus we can!<\/li>\n<li>Without Jesus, we cannot have the inward satisfaction and peace that all is well with our soul, and we lack a good reason for it. With Jesus, we can.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When people tell us that they cannot live the Christian life, it is because they are thinking of trying to walk that road alone. Such a life would not be the Christian life, because the Christian life is based on knowing Jesus has all we will ever need, and He wants to form a partnership, a union where we are not planning to walk alone and relying on our strength.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing Christ first involves knowing that the one who is the author of our faith can be the finisher of our faith. It is knowing that &#8220;<em>greater is He Who is in us than he that is in the world.<\/em>&#8221; It is knowing that &#8220;<em>I <strong>can<\/strong>\u00a0do all things through Christ Who strengthens me<\/em>&#8221; (Philippians 4:13).<\/p>\n<p>If you plan to walk without Christ as your constant companion, teacher, and provider of strength, then you cannot be a Christian, period! But, if you wonder if it is possible to form a union with Christ, the answer is <strong>yes<\/strong>! He is bringing that union within reach of all of us, no matter how dark our past may have been (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:38; Galatians 3:26-28). No, you cannot live the Christian life without uniting with Christ, but with that union, you can. Without Jesus as the center of our camp, we set ourselves up for failure. With Jesus, you can feed and strengthen your faith daily and take on the challenge of one day at a time, but without Him, you would be aiming to fail and reap misery. You can yoke to Him and find rest for your soul, so that you <b>can <\/b>succeed and reap eternal life with Him.<\/p>\n<p>Are you trying to go it alone? There&#8217;s the trouble!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Terry Wane Benton &#8220;I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing&#8221; (John 15:5). Without Jesus, we cannot be saved from a useless and aimless life. With Jesus, we can. Without Jesus, we cannot&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[1685,73,1817],"class_list":["post-88454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-help","tag-jesus","tag-support"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":18683,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/god-cannot-be-tempted-but-jesus-was-tempted-so-is-jesus-not-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":88454,"position":0},"title":"God cannot be tempted, but Jesus was tempted; so, is Jesus not God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My friend, who is an Arian, gave me this puzzling logic:\u00a0 God can't be tempted, but Jesus was tempted; therefore, Jesus is not God.\u00a0 Is this true? Answer: For a Christian, it would be easy to spot this line of reasoning as a falsehood because it ends with a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":89505,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/commandment-keeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":88454,"position":1},"title":"Commandment Keeping","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 17, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Kevin Cauley There are those in the religious world today who ridicule the idea of keeping commandments. They claim that keeping God's commandments has nothing to do with our salvation today. If someone objects and says that we must keep God's commandments to be saved, the charge of legalism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90545,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/we-must-have-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":88454,"position":2},"title":"We Must Have the Church","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 16, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Adam Faughn In our world, we sometimes hear people who speak of how they want a relationship with Jesus, but they do not want much (if anything) to do with the church. This is not new; in fact, some of you will remember the days when the saying, \"give\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62237,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/bearing-fruit\/","url_meta":{"origin":88454,"position":3},"title":"Bearing Fruit","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 18, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer Jesus spoke these well-known words to His disciples shortly before going to the cross: \"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/Grapes-Ripening-on-the-Vine-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":70683,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/feed-my-sheep\/","url_meta":{"origin":88454,"position":4},"title":"Feed My Sheep","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 30, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton If you love Jesus, you must tend His sheep (John 21:15-17). This is what Jesus told Peter. You cannot love Jesus without caring for Jesus' church, who are His sheep. Jesus is inseparable from His church. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot love\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sheep-300x225.avif","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":65300,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/jesus-the-firstborn-from-the-dead\/","url_meta":{"origin":88454,"position":5},"title":"Jesus, the Firstborn from the Dead","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton \"And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood\" (Revelation 1:5 NKJV). \"Firstborn\" is a term that can point\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88454\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}