I’ve written before both about abiding in Christ and the
Fruit of the Spirit, but I had kind of an “Aha” moment recently as I started
reading True Community by Jerry Bridges.
Sometimes just a simple rephrasing makes an old truth more clear. He quotes
Robert Haldane’s Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans:
“It is impossible that the streams
can be dried up when the fountain continues to flow, and it is equally
impossible for the members not to share in the same holiness which dwells so
abundantly in the Head. As the branch, when united to the living vine,
necessarily partakes of its life and fatness, so the sinner, when united to
Christ, must receive an abundant supply of sanctifying grace out of His
immeasurable fullness.”
Or as John recorded Jesus saying, “I am the Vine, you are
the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (15:5 ESV).
I don’t think I’d considered before the fact that the
branches must bear fruit if they are
attached to the Vine. It is now part of our new nature, the life blood flowing
in us, to bear the fruit that the Vine creates. (However, it is possible for
people to only look like they are attached to the Vine and not really be saved and
thus not bear fruit.) Those who are attached will be compelled to bear fruit.
That may not be their own priority to begin with, but the Vinedresser will keep
pruning away all lesser desires.
I really have no choice in whether I will bear fruit or what
that fruit will look like. All of that is determined by my Father. I also can’t
make it happen any faster or through some easier process. (I’m not sure I can
even slow it down if God has His way.) It will grow when and how He desires. It
is rather a relief to know He’s got it all in hand. I am confident that I am
indeed connected to the life of the Vine because of what He has already done in
and through me in recent months and years. And that knowledge leads to further
confidence that He will complete His fruit-bearing work in me and gives me
greater faith and hope.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think I’ve always tried to make
abiding too complicated, too much my own work. The fact is, I am in the Vine
and nothing can now change that. Fruit is both the proof of what God has done
to graft me in and the ongoing evidence of what He is doing. It has nothing to
do with how good I am at being a branch. If it depended on me, I’d be lopping
myself off the Vine every day. To quote Dr. Bob Mayer’s message in our office
chapel service today, “Think how liberating that can be—God’s work does not
depend on you… Nothing happens apart from the sovereign care of God.”
I hope and pray that this lesson won’t soon be forgotten in
the busyness of perfectionism!
“You did not choose
Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and
that your fruit should abide…” –John 15:16
