The Withered Branch and the Burning Flame

The Withered Branch and the Burning Flame

Think’st thou the seal once pressed upon thy soul
Constrains the Eternal Hand from just decree?
That Mercy, tasted, mortgages the Throne
And binds Omnipotence to lenity?
O vain arithmetic of carnal hope,
That reckon’st grace as coin once paid in full,
And wouldst make Heaven debtor to thy sleep.

Attend: for Truth is not a silken nurse
To rock the sluggard in presuming peace.
The Word is flint; it strikes, and sparks of fear
Leap living from the granite of the heart.

“To Ephesus,” saith He whose eyes are flame,
“Thou hast forsaken love’s first ardency.
Remember whence thou art declined; repent—
Else will I move thy lamp from out its place.”

Not unto pagans sounded this rebuke,
But unto those once bright with covenant light.
O dreadful intimacy of grace—
To stand within, yet tremble at removal.

What branch, once quickened by the parent Vine,
May boast continuance while severed clean?
He said not, Near Me—but, “In Me,” cut off;
A paradox of privilege undone:
To have been fed by sap of living Christ
And yet lie sere beneath judicial sun.

For none is lopped from where no graft was set,
Nor cast to flame who never bore the green.
The fire consumes inheritance betrayed,
Not barren heath untouched by husbandry.

And thou—be not high-minded, but in fear.
If ancient boughs, first-nurtured, spared were not,
What wild-olive, by mercy only set,
Shall mock the root and think himself secure?
Behold twin attributes in awful poise:
Goodness that grafts—severity that prunes.
Continue—or the axe remembers thee.

Consider those illumined once with dawn,
Who tasted gift and Spirit’s rushing wind,
And in that light discerned the Crucified—
Yet chose eclipse, and crucified again
The Lord of glory to their second shame.
O terrible irreversibility
Of light rejected with consenting will.

For falling argues altitude before;
One cannot plummet from a depthless void.
Apostasy is not of ignorance,
But altitude abused into abyss.

“He that endureth shall be saved.” Not he
Who blossomed briefly in the morning dew,
But he whose root strikes downward through the drought,
And holds though summer scorch and winter rend.

Salvation is no monument in time,
Cold marble dated at conversion’s hour;
It is a pulse, a respiration lived—
A flame that feeds on watchfulness and prayer.

Grace is no cloak to dignify revolt,
No charter signed for dalliance with sin.
It is a sword that severs flesh from will,
A fire that will not share the heart’s divided throne.

What covenant retains adulterous trust?
What soldier crowned who deserts mid-war?
What scholar claims the laurel of the wise
Who shuts his book and mocks the Master’s voice?
Continuation is the grammar of belief;
Perseverance, its syntax and its seal.

Examine, therefore—art thou yet in Him?
Abiding is the evidence of life.
Lamps, though once kindled, perish without oil;
Branches, though once in sap, grow dry through pride.

Return—while yet the Gardener walks the rows.
Repent—while still the candlestick may stand.
For He is constant in His offered grace,
Yet constant also in His holy fire.

Let none baptize presumption into creed
Nor preach immunity to trembling souls.
The path is narrow not at entrance only,
But narrow still where feet grow faint with years.

God is most faithful—this our anchor stands;
His promise sure, His mercy vast and strong.
Yet faithfulness He seeks in those He saves:
A faith obedient, vigilant, aflame.

Therefore walk softly in triumphant awe—
Not doubting Him, but doubting thine own strength.
For grace is power, not permission; life,
Not license for the old man’s lingering throne.

Abide. Endure. Repent when thou dost fall.
The crown is not for those who once began,
But those who, having begun, refuse to cease—
And stand at last because they stood in Him.

Written by Marguerite Grace
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