It has always been my goal since I received Jesus to represent Him well. But now, the older I get and the crazier the world seems, the more urgent that mission looks. This teaching in John renews my passion and offers insight to help us love people like Christ did.
In John 15: 7, Christ tells us, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”
Jesus makes it clear here that if we hang out with Him, if we keep on keeping on, remaining in His presence, following His example and doing His will, we will live productive, fulfilling lives. But if we choose to go it alone, we will get cast aside. Not sent to hell. Just benched from the game. Two commentaries I read confirm that.
Warren Wiersbe states, “Just as an unfruitful branch is useless, so an unfruitful believer is useless…it is a tragic thing for a once fruitful believer to backslide and lose his privilege of fellowship and service.”
It’s clear that we won’t be sent into the fires of hell. Instead, we’ll be sent to the fire of mere fuel. The healthy branches bear fruit. It’s the trash branches that get burned up just as fire. Empty branches. No fruit. How sad! People don’t come to faith because of those branches because they don’t see the light and love of Jesus in dead branches. And they will make it to heaven, but by the skin of their teeth.
1Cor 3:15, states, “If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
As my Ol Pastor would say, “Ya might git to heaven, but you’ll come through them pearly gates with singed boots, smellin’ like smoke.”
I don’t want to be sidelined from the game, to miss out on the blessing of obeying Christ. I don’t want to smell like smoke.
Jesus brings this point home: We cannot bear fruit on our own, but if we abide, remain in Christ, we can accomplish the purpose for which He created us and we will be fruitful.
It comes down to this: We get set aside when we fail to abide.
We can express…
love or be critical,
joy or be grumbling,
peace or we can be complaining,
patience be abrupt and irritable,
kindness or we can lack empathy,
goodness or we can hateful,
faithfulness or we can be hopeless,
gentleness we can be harsh,
self-control or we can be self-ish and act according to our lesser selves.
But if we want to be the best version of ourselves, if we want to love like Jesus did and attract other people to the kingdom, we will invite the Holy Spirit to live in us and through us so that we can bear fruit. That’s simple, but it’s not easy. It means that we have to get out of the way. We have to die to ourselves, like Paul talks about. It means, it can’t be about me anymore. It’s about Jesus.