August 20: Thoughts on John 15:5

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."
~ John 15:5

"I am the vine; you are the branches"

Have you ever seen a vine in nature? The way it works is that the vine runs along the ground, and little branches branch off the vine and hold the fruit (in this case, a tomato - and yes, a tomato is a fruit).

(image taken with thanks from seedman.com, but not hotlinked, tyvm)

See how there's a main vine there, and little branches branching off the vine and holding the tomatoes?

Okay, so Jesus is the vine. We are the branches. He's our source. We're dependent upon Him, but He's self-sufficient. His roots gather up nourishment and water for us and deliver them to us. We are the branches, offshoots of Him. Without Him, we can't live, can't bear fruit, because we wouldn't have a source of strength and energy and sustenance.

"If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit"

The branches of a vine bear fruit. We see this in nature. It's not the main vine itself that produces the fruit. Rather, the main vine provides support to the branches so that they can produce the fruit.

So, if we remain in Christ (that is, we keep the faith and do our best to follow the Lord) and Christ remains in us (and He tells us in John 6:37 that He won't cast us out if we come to Him, though we can cast ourselves out by turning our backs on Him), we'll do what? Bear fruit. And not just a little bit of fruit, but much fruit. That's a LOT of fruit, not just a single tomato, but maybe more like a whole bunch of grapes, I don't know.

So, we're supposed to be bearing fruit if we remain in Christ. What does it mean to bear fruit? Well, the fruits of the Spirit are "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22-23).

Okay, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say I'm kind of good at some of those. I can do love. I even like loving. I can do joy, kindness, and gentleness. But patience? Peace? Faithfulness? I'm not so very good at those. I think my lack of patience contributes to my lack of peace sometimes. Self-control? Well, that's a hard thing. For instance, I can't keep a secret to save my life. Well, maybe to save my life, but you know what I mean. And "goodness"? Fuhgeddaboutit.

But see, here's the thing. God doesn't want us to have just one kind of fruit. We have the seed of the Holy Spirit within us, right? So theoretically, if we allow ourselves to be fertile ground for the Spirit's work within us, we should bear all the fruits of the Spirit, right? But most of us, me included, don't, at least not all the time.

Why? Maybe because we've allowed the root of bitterness to get in. Maybe because we've allowed Satan to spray pesticide on us (when we should actually be the ones spraying pesticide on him, because he's the real pest, right?). Maybe because we've started to turn away from Jesus, allowing our connection to Him to get weaker and weaker, until it's difficult for us to get all the nutrients we need from Him. Maybe unconfessed or unrepentant sin is clogging up the pathway the nutrients would be passing through.

"apart from me you can do nothing"

Wow. So here, Jesus is telling us that apart from Him, we won't be able to bear fruit. We wouldn't be able to get anything done at all! That's a stark contrast to Mark 9:23, which tells us that all things are possible to those who believe, and Phillippians 4:13, which tells us that we can do all things through Christ.

So, we can't do anything without Christ, but with Him, we can do anything! That's pretty amazing, isn't it? The Lord is our strength and our sustenance. He gives us our nutrients and water and His Spirit and His love, because He is truly good.