Prayer for Divine Guidance

Heavenly Father, I ask that your Holy Spirit bless and enlighten me as I read, reflect and rest in the boundless riches of salvation that Christ Jesus has won! Abba Father, draw me closer into the Divine Dance with You, Your Son, and Holy Spirit to continually transform my life here on earth to taste life with You in Heaven! Amen.

Reflection

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:1-5

Imagine that Passover night. Step into the Upper Room and hear the bustle of pilgrims on the street below. See oil lamps lit, flickering across faces of thirteen men reclining around a table. Feel the air charged with hope, and yet, foreboding. Jesus knows that His hour has come.

Hear Jesus’ steady voice say to His disciples “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower.” Jesus does not say that He is a vine but that He is “the true vine.” His words would have grabbed the disciples’ attention as they knew the grapevine was a symbol for Israel throughout the Old Testament (Psalm 80:8-16; Isaiah 5:1-7; Jeremiah 2:21). By declaring Himself the “true vine”, Jesus presents Himself as the fulfilment of all that God intended Israel to be. Called to be God’s vine, Israel had failed to bring forth the fruit of righteousness. As the “true vine” Jesus offers Himself to the world as the true source of life and blessing.

Then, in a profound picture of union with Him, Jesus explains, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” This highlights the intimate, inseparable oneness between Jesus and His followers. See the vine and the branches, not as two separate realities, but as one. The apostle Paul delighted to use the phrase “in Christ” (e.g., Romans 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Ephesians 1:3-14) to express the wonder of the believer’s oneness with Christ. We are actually “in Christ” and He is “in us” (e.g., John 14:20; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 1:27). “To be in Christ, and for Christ to be in us, is the very essence of the gospel. This is not a metaphor but a spiritual reality, by which the life of Christ becomes the life of the believer, shaping us into His image.” (J. I. Packer, Knowing God)

Through faith, we are united to Jesus in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension to glory (Romans 6:3-5; Ephesians 2:6). It is God who has done this. We have not earned or achieved it. Not only is Jesus with us, He is in us and we are in Him. This is no figure of speech but the actual mystical union of a believer with Christ. We are not just following Jesus, we are bound to Him. This is not just a doctrine to ponder but a miracle to experience. “Let us therefore labor more to feel Christ living in us than to discover the nature of that intercourse.” (John Calvin, Commentary on Ephesians)

Wonderfully, Jesus does not tell us, “Strive to become branches,” because we are already branches! Rather, Jesus invites us, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The Greek verb translated “abide” is meno, meaning “to remain, to stay, to continue, to dwell, to endure.” It is a verb emphasizing the ongoing, permanent relationship between Christ and the believer.

Jesus is not asking us to attain union with Him but to awaken to our union and to live in it!

“Abiding in Christ is not about human effort or religious striving. It is the gracious reality that we are already included in His life. Christian existence is not lived toward Christ but from Christ.” (Thomas Torrance, The Mediation of Christ)

Or, as The Message renders Jesus’ invitation to us: “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you” (John 15:5, The Message).

Jesus calls us to glory in that flow of perichoretic love from the Father to the Son to the branches. We can only marvel at the divine mystery, the wonder of oneness and inclusion: just as the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, so the Son is abiding in us, asking us to abide in Him.

Hear Jesus’ astonishing promise to those who abide in Him: “Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit.” We are not responsible to produce the fruit but to abide in Jesus. Fruit comes from Christ’s own life flowing through us. Branches do not produce fruit but bear fruit, receiving and expressing the life coming from the Vine. Wherever the life of Christ flows “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23) are sure to appear. Fruit for God is not the product of self-improvement or behavioral modification, but sharing in the life of Jesus. Jesus calls us not to frantic effort but to restful abiding in the oneness already given to us. Our striving exhausts us; Jesus’ life empowers us!

Know then the freedom in Jesus’ liberating words: “because apart from me you can do nothing.” Jesus is not scolding but lovingly reminding us of the honest truth! God created us to live our lives in Jesus with His love spilling over through us to a broken world.