John 15:4-7 (New King James Version)
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. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
I'll try to break it down the best I can and in the way I believe it to mean. Abide means to be vitally attached to something. Not just cling to it, but be vitally attached. We must truly believe that we can do nothing without Jesus and we must go to Him for everything. We have to NEED Him for everything. So, we need to be vitally attached to Jesus and in turn He will live in us and be attached to us. We will then be able to bear fruit for the glory of God because it will be Him helping us to bear the fruit. He will be supplying us with His word (nourishment), which we will use to bear fruit. Without His word (nourishment), the branches (us) will die. Think of a vine like the scriptures says. God is not being cryptic here, He is giving us a picture since most humans are very visual people. If the branch cracks from the vine just a little bit, that branch will wither and die. A dying branch will not bear any fruit. It may try to, but the fruit will be puny, diseased, or just very weak. It will not be for the Glory of God. Eventually, it will die. After it dies, it will be torn from the vine and cast into the fire to burn. That doesn't sound fun at all. I want to abide in Jesus and have Him abide in me so I can be fruitful for His glory. Jesus then goes on to say that if we are vitally attached to Him, His words will permanently live in us and we will be given what we desire. Hmmm... Sounds pretty good! Now we get to the tricky part. I don't think it means that we will be given a mansion or a million dollars,. That first part of the sentence clarifies that His Words will abide in us. That means, we will only ask for things that are within the will of God which is awesome! That will then allow us to be even more fruitful for Him! Check out this scripture:
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. 6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
I'll try to break it down the best I can and in the way I believe it to mean. Abide means to be vitally attached to something. Not just cling to it, but be vitally attached. We must truly believe that we can do nothing without Jesus and we must go to Him for everything. We have to NEED Him for everything. So, we need to be vitally attached to Jesus and in turn He will live in us and be attached to us. We will then be able to bear fruit for the glory of God because it will be Him helping us to bear the fruit. He will be supplying us with His word (nourishment), which we will use to bear fruit. Without His word (nourishment), the branches (us) will die. Think of a vine like the scriptures says. God is not being cryptic here, He is giving us a picture since most humans are very visual people. If the branch cracks from the vine just a little bit, that branch will wither and die. A dying branch will not bear any fruit. It may try to, but the fruit will be puny, diseased, or just very weak. It will not be for the Glory of God. Eventually, it will die. After it dies, it will be torn from the vine and cast into the fire to burn. That doesn't sound fun at all. I want to abide in Jesus and have Him abide in me so I can be fruitful for His glory. Jesus then goes on to say that if we are vitally attached to Him, His words will permanently live in us and we will be given what we desire. Hmmm... Sounds pretty good! Now we get to the tricky part. I don't think it means that we will be given a mansion or a million dollars,. That first part of the sentence clarifies that His Words will abide in us. That means, we will only ask for things that are within the will of God which is awesome! That will then allow us to be even more fruitful for Him! Check out this scripture:
John 15:1-3 (New King James Version)
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;[a] and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
Ok, so God is the vinedresser, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. This means that God (acting as the gardener) will cut off the branches from the vine that are not bearing fruit. Does this mean that we can lose our salvation? I don't think it means that. I think it means that although some of us profess Jesus as our King with our mouths, we don't fully believe it in our hearts. Therefore, we have not been truly saved in the first place. I think this is where we get cut off of the vine and eventually will be cast into the fire. We need to take the leap of faith with our hearts and fully abide in Jesus to be saved before it's too late. If we are a true Christian and abide in Jesus, God will prune us so we become more fruitful. Picture this: we are a branch and each branch has stems. Some stems are fruitful and some are not. A gardener would cut off the unfruitful stems so that the branch may bear more fruitful stems in it's place. The pruning process for a plant is painful and can stress a plant, the same as with humans. When God prunes us, it may be painful at first, but it will allow us to bear more fruit for Him. God will prune away parts of us that prove to be unproductive for His kingdom. That could be a job that is taking over too much of you and not leaving time for Him, or it could be something smaller like a video game. It could also be your health because you are not allowing time for God. At first, the loss will hurt and we will want to question, but God knows all. He sees the whole picture. We only see what's right in front of us. We should trust God's judgement and have faith that He knows best. We will be better in the end for it. I do want to clarify also that I don't think God actually does bad things to us to prune us, but I do think He allows bad things to happen to us sometimes so He can turn it around for His good and our good.
Terry and I have a teenage daughter and we were talking to her the other night about bearing good fruit for God's glory. We told her that any time she has the opportunity to smile, be nice, or help someone out; she is being fruitful, however we may never see that fruit grow. We never know how far that smile or kind words will go. What if someone was having a terrible day and that smile came at just the right time. Instead of going home that night, they decided to attend a function of some sort that they were going to skip because they were having such a bad day. At that function, maybe they meet another Christian that gives them another smile, holds a door for them, or even says the right thing at the right time. The person having the bad day and the Christian could possibly strike up a conversation which leads to an invite to the Christian's church or to a church function later that week. When they attend the service or the function, they accept Christ as their savior or even if they were saved a year later. Through the simple action of giving someone a smile or a kind word, maybe a soul can be saved. All it takes is a quality seed to be planted. That seed could turn to a seedling, a plant, then produce flowers and then set fruit. We can only plant those quality seeds that will bear fruit with Jesus though. Only Jesus can save, but we sure can plant some good seeds with His help. While Satan is busy planting seeds of deceit, we could combat him by planting seeds of love.
LD
Ok, so God is the vinedresser, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. This means that God (acting as the gardener) will cut off the branches from the vine that are not bearing fruit. Does this mean that we can lose our salvation? I don't think it means that. I think it means that although some of us profess Jesus as our King with our mouths, we don't fully believe it in our hearts. Therefore, we have not been truly saved in the first place. I think this is where we get cut off of the vine and eventually will be cast into the fire. We need to take the leap of faith with our hearts and fully abide in Jesus to be saved before it's too late. If we are a true Christian and abide in Jesus, God will prune us so we become more fruitful. Picture this: we are a branch and each branch has stems. Some stems are fruitful and some are not. A gardener would cut off the unfruitful stems so that the branch may bear more fruitful stems in it's place. The pruning process for a plant is painful and can stress a plant, the same as with humans. When God prunes us, it may be painful at first, but it will allow us to bear more fruit for Him. God will prune away parts of us that prove to be unproductive for His kingdom. That could be a job that is taking over too much of you and not leaving time for Him, or it could be something smaller like a video game. It could also be your health because you are not allowing time for God. At first, the loss will hurt and we will want to question, but God knows all. He sees the whole picture. We only see what's right in front of us. We should trust God's judgement and have faith that He knows best. We will be better in the end for it. I do want to clarify also that I don't think God actually does bad things to us to prune us, but I do think He allows bad things to happen to us sometimes so He can turn it around for His good and our good.
Terry and I have a teenage daughter and we were talking to her the other night about bearing good fruit for God's glory. We told her that any time she has the opportunity to smile, be nice, or help someone out; she is being fruitful, however we may never see that fruit grow. We never know how far that smile or kind words will go. What if someone was having a terrible day and that smile came at just the right time. Instead of going home that night, they decided to attend a function of some sort that they were going to skip because they were having such a bad day. At that function, maybe they meet another Christian that gives them another smile, holds a door for them, or even says the right thing at the right time. The person having the bad day and the Christian could possibly strike up a conversation which leads to an invite to the Christian's church or to a church function later that week. When they attend the service or the function, they accept Christ as their savior or even if they were saved a year later. Through the simple action of giving someone a smile or a kind word, maybe a soul can be saved. All it takes is a quality seed to be planted. That seed could turn to a seedling, a plant, then produce flowers and then set fruit. We can only plant those quality seeds that will bear fruit with Jesus though. Only Jesus can save, but we sure can plant some good seeds with His help. While Satan is busy planting seeds of deceit, we could combat him by planting seeds of love.
LD
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