About John 15

THIS WEEK it's been fun to find a few particularly wonderful things as I was reading in the Word. One thing that really caught my attention was John 15, the chapter which contains the familiar metaphor of Jesus as the "True Vine." I learned something deeper about this chapter than I'd ever noticed before, and I'm going to share it with you.

As Jesus speaks He begins with the image of Him as the Vine and us as the branches which are supposed to bear much fruit. This is supposed to teach us not only to serve Him but to depend on Him for everything, because the branches can't do anything without the life-giving, supportive vine. Here's how it starts:

"[1] I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. [2] Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." At this point when I was reading I became nervous. What does it mean not to bear fruit? Does it mean not seeing anyone saved, or not trying to? Does it mean not reflecting Christ in one's character, or not demonstrating a great change? I stopped and asked God whether I was bearing any fruit, because I certainly wouldn't want to be 'taken away.' I wanted to make sure.

So I kept reading. "[3] You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. [4] Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. [5] I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." There it is! There is how we bear fruit! We bear fruit by "abiding" in Christ, and in the same way He will abide in us.

Now I wondered exactly what it means to "abide." I think it is close to "live," but how is it different? I've looked up the word on the Merriam-Webster website. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abide

As a transitive verb "abide" means: 1. "To wait for." 2. a) "To endure without yielding." b) "To bear patiently." 3. "To accept without objection." As an intransitive verb it means" 1. "To remain stable or fixed in a state." 2. "To continue in a place."

So I think "abide" means more than "live." It means to stay put or endure in one place, to continue to live somewhere. If a branch stays on a vine and does its job by bearing fruit, it gets to stay on the vine and the vinedresser doesn't take it away. If we stay in Jesus, if we continue on as people who belong to Him and not to the world we live in, which is passing away, then He will stay with us and be ours, and His Spirit will produce fruit inside of us. That is the "fruit of the Spirit" listed in Galatians 5:22-23, "[22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law."

So if we abide in Christ, and He abides in us, we will bear much fruit, and He continues to change us ("prune" us) so that we will bear more fruit (verse 2). Now I know what "abide" means, but exactly how do I go about doing that? I kept reading. I came to verse 10, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." There it is! That's how we abide in Christ. If we keep His commandments then we will abide in His love. In John 14:15, the chapter just before this one, Jesus said "If you love Me, keep My commandments." He wants us to keep His commandments to show that we love Him. After all, if we do not obey Him we demonstrate that we do not love Him, and anybody who does not love Him could not possibly abide in Him.

Great! So we bear fruit by abiding in Him, and we abide in Him by keeping His commandments, demonstrating our love for Him. Now I ask, exactly how do we keep His commandments? I mean, what, at the root of it all, does He command? I kept reading and I came to verse 12, "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." And verse 17, "These things I command you, that you love one another."
By keeping His commandments we demonstrate our love for Him, and we demonstrate our love for Him by loving others! How cool is that?

In this amazing chapter Jesus is giving us instructions not only on what to do, but how to do it. We know that we are supposed to live for Christ, but how? I pray for more and more understanding of how I, personally, can live my own life for Christ, what I can do so that all I do is done for Him and in a way that pleases Him. And this is how. We bear fruit (serve Him and give Him glory) if we abide in Him. We abide in Him if we keep Him commandments. We keep His commandments if we love others as He loves us. If you read the ten commandments, every one of them is either about loving God or loving other people. We need to love God enough not to make idols. We need to love the people whom He loves enough not to kill, steal, covet, etc. He has been commanding us this same this for a very long time. We keep His commandments if we love others and if we love God. If we don't keep them, we don't show that we have any regard for God.

Oh - but how do we love others as Christ loves us? Now we're thinking! The best way to learn how to love people that much is to look at Jesus Himself. After all, He is the perfect example of how to please God. In order to love others as He has loved us, we should look at how He loves us. Check out verse 13, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." This is Jesus telling us the magnitude of His love: it's the greatest love, a love to beat all other loves! He laid down His life for His friends. Wow - we're His friends! Isn't that something? We, with all the messes we make and the trouble we cause and our failures and stains, we're His friends now. And He loves us. That's how much we are supposed to love others.

He loves us with boldness and without hesitation, with a willingness to do whatever it takes to make sure we will be safe with God forever. He heals people and helps people. He treats people kindly and provides for their needs. He goes to great lengths for those in need. He loves us unselfishly and faithfully, paying the gratest cost for us not because we're anything extraordinary but because He is that extraordinary. And we're supposed to imitate His character and actions, with bold love for the people He loves. That's the best way to serve Him. I hope and I pray that I and we all can learn to have that much love for both our friends and our enemies, so that anyone can see that Christ is very much alive in all of His servants.