Abide in the Vine – Without Me You Can Do Nothing – EP47
John 15:5
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.
Hello and welcome back to the One Thing Podcast! The question of the day for today is: “what is it to be a Christian?”
"...love the Lord your God and second, to love your neighbor as yourself."
For those of us who have said we believe in the Lord Jesus and we want to follow Him- what is it that God requires of us? What is our life all about as Christians? Jesus makes it very simple for us, He brings it to two very important commands, two very important ways of living that God calls us to live in. He says first of all, to love the Lord your God and second, to love your neighbor as yourself.
Without me you can do nothing
"See, apart from the Lord we cannot produce the fruit of God."
So how do we do this, how do we abide in the vine? We know that if we read the scriptures, that man is incapable of fully completing and keeping the commands of God due to our sinfulness, but the Lord Jesus has made a way. He says in John 15:5 “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.” See, apart from the Lord we cannot produce the fruit of God. The fruit of God, the fruit of the Spirit, is love. Love for the Lord and love for one another.
abide in the vine
Now Jesus himself is the one whom we believe in. As we believe in the Lord Jesus, as we remain in Him, meaning we trust and we depend on Him to fulfill the promise of hope within our lives, the promise of God empowering us by allowing and causing His son to be birthed within our soul. This is our faith, this is Christianity. Not that we're living in our own strength, not that we're striving to fulfill the commands of God in our own strength or with our own abilities, but simply trusting in the Lord, remaining in the Lord Jesus.
Abide in the vine! "...and trust that He is the sent one from God..."
If we remain, some versions say if we abide in Him, this is the Christian life. That we would abide and trust in the Lord Jesus and trust that He is the sent one from God, the one who is the hope of God in order to be all that God has called us to be. A people producing the fruit of God 's love. Demonstrating to this world that the world would know us by our love for God and our love for one another.
"He has the power to also cause us to remain" ...and to abide in the vine!
May today, each of us come close into the vine. May we drink from the goodness of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus. May we trust in Him, may we know that He has the power to keep, He has the power to also cause us to remain. Thank you God for your son Jesus, may we look to Him this day and may we trust in is great power.