John 15 – Part 3

John 15:9-12 – “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.”

Love. It’s something we all want and crave. We want to be loved by those around us. We want to see them smile at us and laugh with us. We want to feel their hand of comfort upon us during hard times, and we want to see them standing at the end of a long race. Love is something that every person no matter race, color or creed desires. Oh, it may look different to different people, but we all need it to thrive. 

Jesus wants us to be IN His love. That doesn’t mean skirting the edges or dipping our toe in it. Nope, He wants us neck deep in it. Remember how when you were a kid that when it was time to get in the pool that you wanted to jump all out in the deep end? That’s what Jesus wants – us jumping into the deep end of His love. 

But what we find when we get there can be somewhat frightening and somewhat exciting. “What could possibly be frightening about the love of Jesus?”, you might ask. Obedience. Being obedient can be frightening at times. It may mean getting out of your comfort zone. It might mean having people not like you. It might mean that someone could make fun of you. Yep, obedience can be scary. BUT jumping into the deep end of love can also be exciting – enter joy. 

Now, here’s the thing about joy – lots of people get it confused with happiness. Joy is not always happiness. Joy is that “peace that passes all understanding”. It’s knowing that God has got this thing and I don’t need to worry about it. All those things that makes obedience frightening, joy makes them tolerable. 

And love covers them all. Love is what fills the deep end. Love is what makes you choose to be obedient. Love is what makes you find joy. Love. You gotta have it. 

We shouldn’t just keep all this wonderfulness to ourself. No, we need to spread it around. Other people need it too! You see, Jesus loves in a very special way – He gave His life for us. We need to love others in the same way. To that person that drives you crazy, love them. To that child that asks a million and one questions, love them. To that spouse that frustrates you to no end, love them. To that person who is smiling all the time because smiling is their favorite, love them. 

Jumping into the deep end of Jesus’ love does have consequences. You might experience a peace that weirds people out. You might find yourself telling the person behind you in the coffee line about Jesus. You might even find yourself at church every time the doors are open. Who knows what will happen! But guess what? It is totally worth the jump. 

John 15 – Part 2

John 15:4-8 – “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”

Here’s where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. 

Abiding. Here’s how good old Webster’s 1828 defines abiding – “Dwelling; remaining; continuing; enduring; awaiting.” 

It’s kinda like the wheels on a car. They have to be in line to work properly. If one is out of whack, the car drives crazy. You can’t have one wheel in front of the other. They have to work together to make the car go straight. 

We have to allow Jesus to dwell in us. We have to abide or stay in Him. If we get out of line, everything goes crazy. We can’t stay on the narrow way when we are out of line with Him. 

And then there’s the whole fruit aspect of these verses. We kind of touched on this in the last blog post, but in case you have forgotten – you can’t bear fruit without Jesus. You have to be attached to Him. 
Now you can grow yucky fruit. Fruit that is not sweet or pure or beneficial. But this kind of fruit has no benefit. It does not make life better by knowing it is there. 

If you want to grow and produce some type of fruit, the plant has to have a source for nutrients. The branches where the fruit is produced must be attached to a base or a vine that can sustain the plant and give it what it needs to grow good fruit. There is a reason Jesus used this analogy – those He was speaking to knew farming and gardening. They understood and realized the necessity behind what He was saying. This wasn’t rocket science. This was real life. 

They understood that if a branch in their vineyard wasn’t producing, the logical thing to do was cut it off and burn it, get rid of it. They knew that in order for the grapes to grow, the branches where the flowers bloomed must stay attached to the vine. This was their life; this is what they knew. 

Jesus wasn’t speaking to them in some weird language. He was speaking to them in a way that they can understand and that people throughout the ages could understand. I may not tend a vineyard, but I know enough to know how things like that sort of work. I can get the gist of it. 

God still speaks like that to us today. He is telling us here in these verses – “You MUST be attached to Jesus if you want any thing productive to go on in your life. And if you aren’t doing something, well then, drastic measures are going to have to go on to get your attention and to get you back to where you need to be. I do this because I love you and I want you to be the best you can be.” (Melissa interpretation here.)

I know when I have had a garden in the past, I go out there and hope that there will be nothing that I need to do to make the vegetables grow. I hope that the plants are growing up with no issues, that the weeds are not there and that all of the branches are producing fruit or vegetables. But deep down, I know that will not be the case. I know I will need to pluck and prune and rake the soil around a bit. I know that if I want a bountiful harvest, I’m going to have to work at it. 

God is the same way. He would like for things just to go along smoothly and everyone accept Jesus for who He is and what He has done. But He knows that it takes work. The human race has been work since day 1 and we will continue to be work until the very last day. But God is full of grace and mercy and He wants to make our life here the fullest and most profitable that it can be. We just have to let Him do the pruning, the raking, the weed pulling and the fertilizing. And above all else, we MUST stay attached to the Vine. Otherwise, we will perish without His nurturing love. 

John 15 – Part 1

John 15:1-3  – “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.”

John 15 came to my attention 3 different times yesterday. So, I took that as God trying to get my attention regarding what He had to say in these verses. I’m going to try to do a mini-series on these verses. So, let’s do this!

First of all, let’s look at the relationships here. There is a relationship between Jesus and the Father – the branch and the gardener. The responsibility of the Gardener is to care for the plants – to feed and fertilize them, prune and protect them and to monitor and enjoy the fruit that the plants produce. The plants responsibility is to be submissive to the will of the gardener and to bear fruit. 

Here is the deal – Jesus is the vine and we, his followers, are the branches. (We will get to that verse at a later date. It’s actually verse 5.)   Without the vine, the branches cannot produce the fruit. When the branches are not producing, they are removed. (We will get to that at another date too! So much to look forward to!) The branches that are producing are pruned so that they will bring forth even more fruit. 

What does all this mean for us as followers of Christ? It means that we need to be about the Father’s business of producing fruit. We need to be submissive to His pruning and accepting of His “nutrients” He provides for our growth. Every day, we have the opportunity to grow. It is our choice if we do or not. We go through periods of pruning. Sometimes it seems constant and other times it seems a bit spread out. But the point is that God loves and cares for us enough to pay particular attention to what we need to be the best for Him. 

As for the whole fruit thing, what does that look like? What does “fruit” look like in my life? I think it can take several forms. One is explained in Galations 5:22,23 as “the fruit of the Spirit”. These are characteristics found in our life when we seek after the Lord. Another example is the people we affect in our life. We show them the love of God by our words and our actions. I believe that being obedient is also a fruit. Choosing to read, study and pray develop the relationship we are to have with the Vine AND the Gardener. And then there is the ultimate fruit – leading someone to Christ. Could it possibly get any better or any sweeter? 

I am so grateful that God tends to the garden of my heart in a more diligent and loving way than I care for my own yard. All I do is whack away at what I don’t want, the things that are unseemly. He doesn’t stroll into my life on a hit or miss basis and start whacking. He is there every minute of every day tending and nurturing and pruning and fertilizing. He provides everything I need to grow in His light. 

The question is – Am I going to choose to grow and produce fruit today? Well…that is the prayer and desire of my heart. Now, let’s see if I will follow Him through this thing.