Abide Friends…. Abide.
“Staying connected to the Lord is hard to do.” – The shared thought of so many.
I want to begin by asking you to ponder a question; Does the branch depend on the vine for life or does the vine depend on the branch for life?
Now before you tell me what a stupid question this is, consider the words of Christ from John 15:4, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”(ESV) Maybe we have switched the roles of branches in vines. Maybe in our self-serving, self-interested, self glorifying approach to everything including faith we have begun to believe that the vine is the product of the branch. Now you don’t have to take my word for it, ask your friendly neighborhood horticulturist to confirm the next sentence. The existence of the vine always precedes the existence of its branches.
The existence, growth, flow of life, and fruit bearing of any branch is absolutely dependent upon the vine. And for a branch to receive anything the vine must provide it. So when Jesus invites/instructs us to abide it is an invitation to absolute dependence. It is an act of humility and submission to abide. it is the declaration, “I am insufficient apart from Christ to live and bear fruit.”, not in words but in action. And that is where the difficulty is most often centered. to declare this complete dependency on Christ is to bring a death-blow to both our pride and the value of other people’s opinions. But there is no life flowing into us from pride or other people’s opinions, only more and more dryness.
So my friends, I say abide in the Vine and he will abide in you. And in the abiding you will receive from Him all that you need. You will know the flow of life into you that simply gives you the necessary nourishment for growth and in due season, bearing fruit. The fruit you bear will be that which brings glory and honor to the Vine, so that the Vines goodness will be seen in the fruit of its branches. And all the branches do… abide.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in Him, he is it that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5(ESV)
Abide my friends… Abide.
