“Remain in me, as I also remain in you.
No branch can bear fruit by itself;
it must remain in the vine.
Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”John 15:4 (NIV)
Is it just me? Am I the only one who can rapidly spiral into an unpredicted hurricane of whens and hows and what-ifs? Sometimes it clearly builds, but sometimes it swells out of seemingly nowhere. There’s the expectation of fruit and the anxious thoughts of ‘how am I going to come up with it??’ We are often so results-oriented that we just want to check off the lists of our “home fruit,” “work fruit,” “church fruit,” “family fruit” for the day or the week and move on to the next lists. You get the drift. We are busy with the next set of tasks and the hope of the next basketful of results.
In The Awe of God, John Bevere says, “The world’s system is like river rapids forcefully surging, even pounding upon a person’s psyche…” (p. 59) I know you can relate to the pounding! We have to be in the world but not of it (through our choices) in order to avoid being swept away. And thankfully, Jesus will rescue us if we do get swept away! Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” and, oh, I am so glad to go to Him and rest! In John 15:4, it gets even better. Jesus says to us – come and stay – abide, remain in me as I stay with you. Then, the fruit will come. I can’t bear the lasting kind of fruit unless I remain attached to the vine. I have some lovely, delicious tomatoes in my back yard right now, but you know what will happen if I break a branch off of the plant itself, the plant that is firmly rooted, growing, and drawing everything the branches (and the ripening tomatoes!) need from the ground!
Let us work on the mindset of coming and remaining. We can’t “remain” at church or with a Bible in our hands – that wouldn’t work anyway. Remain in Him in prayer, worship, meditating on the word even while we do our tasks. He wants our whole lives, not just parts. If we remain in Him, the fruit will come!
He Abides
I’m rejoicing night and day
As I walk the narrow way,
For the hand of God in all my life I see;
And the reason of my bliss,
Yes, the secret all is this:
That the Comforter abides with me.Refrain:He abides, He abides;
Hallelujah, He abides with me!
I’m rejoicing night and day
As I walk the narrow way,
For the Comforter abides with me.
See:
https://hymnary.org/text/im_rejoicing_night_and_day
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2013/08/01/the-secret-place
Devotional by Heather Cornett
