My first thought was about a seedless watermelon, not a grape, until I realized that a seedless watermelon has seeds. They are those small, pesky, white things. But a seedless grape doesn’t have seeds. So, how can something without a seed produce something without a seed?

The answer is, you can’t. In the case of a grape, unlike a watermelon, you dont have to worry about some laboratory manipulated mutation of some sort. Man did not figure out a way to produce a seedless grape, God did. Years ago, grape growers noticed some grapes had no seeds. They loved it, but how do you reproduce something that has no seed? The answer: they grew more seedless grapes by planting cuttings from the vines of the grapes that had no seeds. The ability to reproduce itself did not come from within the grape, it came from the vine, the source of life.

Jesus told us in John chapter 15 that He is the vine, and apart from Him, there can be no life and no lasting fruit. Anything we try on our own will eventually wither and die. Could the problems that many Christians and churches are facing today be the result of them trying to produce something they have no power to produce? We can fabricate artificial joy, but not real joy. We can produce temporary pleasure, but it quickly passes away. Anything we attempt to do apart from Christ will not last, it’s like chasing the wind.

Solomon said he tried everything under the sun, and it was all vanity and vexation of spirit. He finally came to this conclusion. “Fear God, and keep His commandment. This is the whole duty of man.” A life built upon the sand is unstable, but a life built on the Rock of Ages will last for all eternity. Christ, working in us and through us, can produce life.