“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…Abide in Me, and I in You. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” -Jesus, John 15.
After trusting God for salvation, many of us think that it’s all up to us now to obey and serve him. As Andrew Murray explains in Abide in Christ,
“The idea they have of grace is this-that their conversion and pardon are God’s work, but that now, in gratitude to God, it is their work to live as Christians, and follow Jesus. There is always the thought of a work that has to be done, and even though they pray for help, still the work is theirs. They fail continually and become hopeless; and the despondency only increases the helplessness.”
God doesn’t save us and then say, “OK, show me what you can do now!” The reason we try to do it on our own is that we have just enough natural abilities that lead us to think we are self-sufficient, so we tend to only call on God when we really need him. This is even more prevalent in our affluent society that makes our lives easier and gives us a false sense of security. But no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to follow God’s standards on our own. It’s just too hard without him. My slogan used to be “Do your best and trust God for the rest.” I’m beginning to see that I must trust him first.
The vine doesn’t have to try and produce the fruit – it just happens when the right combination of sun, water, and nutrients are brought together. The same thing happens with us when we are connected to the Vine, which is connected to the Root for a firm foundation that sends up the life-sap of the Holy Spirit. Add some light rays from the Son, drink in his living water and we are transformed into living examples of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Compassion for lost souls is also kindled, “bearing fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” (Mark 4:20). Trying to produce this spiritual fruit on our own is no more possible than a branch surviving on its own apart from the vine. As a friend of mine explained to me recently, “We don’t produce the fruit; we bear it when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Another friend put it this way:
“Like a fruit tree, we must have the seed of our life planted in fertile ground. And as we grow and are nurtured, we need to have our limbs extended to heaven to receive the sun light. And it will take some painful pruning as limbs grow in the wrong direction. And we have to be careful of finding ourselves in the shade (wrong influence) where our growth can be stunted and/or severely deterred.”
It is such a wonderful mystery, how God is in us and we are in him and how he works through us. I don’t understand how he does it, but it’s good to know that:
God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27
Dwell in His secret place 