1/16/13  Ezekiel 15
Jerusalem is compared to a vine. This comparison is not new.  Isaiah, Hosea, and the psalmist Asaph all wrote of the vine planted by God, the vinedresser.  It was meant to be beautiful, to produce good fruit.  But the vine failed to produce fruit and has been cut down and now is being thrown into the fire.  The wood of the vine is useless, God tells Ezekiel.  It can't be made into anything, not even a simple peg to hold something.  It is not even useful as fuel for a fire.  It is but kindling.  God has set His face against Jerusalem. They have acted unfaithfully.  They have refused the life giving Spirit that would bring good fruit through its branches.
 Jesus said " 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 bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit." John 15:1-2.  " Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me. 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. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch, and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." v4-6

Without abiding, without an enduring, present relationship with Jesus we are as dead and useless as the wood from a lopped off vine.  Israel cut itself off from its life source, from the Lord God Who alone could make it living and fruitful.  To be separated from God is death. It is darkness. It is uselessness. 

But to abide in Christ, the True Vine, is Life!  He is Light, He is Life.  In Him we will live and bear the fruit of light. Turn your face towards Him and receive the light and life that only He can give.  It is all of Him!
" Oh God, who art the truth, make me one with thee in everlasting love. It wearieth me often to read and hear many things: In Thee is all that I would have and can desire" ( The Imitation of Christ)