When I was in high school, I worked a couple of summers at a cherry orchard. It was seasonal work – 12-hour days for as long as there were cherries to be picked. Hired by our Fellowship of Christian Athletes leader, two of my buddies and I served as the small crew that collected and transported crates filled by a few ambitious locals and a group of migrant workers.
Before the sun came up, we dropped off ladders and empty crates and then drove up and down the rows of trees in a tractor, loading the trailer until it was full and ready to take to the shed to clean, pit, and package the sweet cherries into 5-gallon buckets. It was hard and sticky work, but it led to a decent payday for a high school kid. And the bonus? All the cherries you could eat!
This experience coincided with my coming to Christ and gave me some helpful insights. The Bible makes good use of agricultural illustrations. One example is found in John 15, where Jesus paints a picture of a living vine — green, full of fruit, and flourishing. In verses 4 and 5, Jesus says, “Abide in me, and I in you. 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. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
The Greek word for “abide” means to stay put. Secure. By grace and through faith, we are “grafted into” the living vine. Connected.
To “abide” is not some special spiritual technique, but instead the posture of trust in Jesus, resting in his love (15:9), lived out in glad obedience to him (15:10). It’s joy-full (15:11). And the bonus: every branch united to him in two-way friendship is guaranteed fruit that will stand the test of time.
The opposite is also true. Jesus says that “apart from me, you can do nothing.” This may not seem true, at first blush. After all, there are many people doing many good things apart from Jesus – worthwhile things, for their families, communities, and world. But they are not us. And we are not trying to do good things – we are trying to do Jesus things. We are trying to help usher in God’s loving kingdom. What could be more important than that? But we cannot do that apart from Jesus.
We cannot be the people that God is calling us to be, individually or as a church, apart from Jesus. In fact, we cannot do anything truly worthwhile for God and the world God loves, apart from Jesus. Nothing.
Independence. Isolation. Separation. Being determined to go it alone, apart from Jesus, is a fruitless way to live. Peril consists in refusing to come and be pruned, cleansed, pitted, and packaged by the Father (15:2–3); refusing to lean into Christ’s love; refusing to be vitally united to him.
BUT thanks be to God for inviting us to BE, to abide in Jesus!
How do we do that? How do we abide in Jesus? The answer is not some great mystery – it is exactly what we have always been taught, what the people of God have always tried to do, throughout the centuries. To abide in Jesus, we need to spend time with Jesus. We want to BE with Him - to be in His presence through prayer, reading His Word, and individual and corporate worship.
We need Jesus. We can’t bear fruit without Him. We can’t do anything in this world that God is calling us to do without Jesus. Individually. Or as a church.
As we surrender to Him, place our faith in Him, rest in His love and grace, we are not trying to hang on. We don’t have the strength for that. But He does! He is holding us on! He’s got you! He’s got us in the palm of His hand – safe, secure, forever.
We are taking a 21-day journey of prayer and fasting beginning next Monday. The primary purpose of these 21 days is to set aside time to BE. Make room for Jesus and join us on this journey. You can pick up a hard copy of the ABIDE devotional journal at church this Sunday or download an electronic copy here. If you need help as you wrestle with the discipline of prayer or fasting, please reach out to a member of staff or to your community group leader, who can help you.
As we navigate the disruption and uncertainty of change in our church and move toward Holy Week, there may be nothing more important for us to do than to abide in Jesus, to BE connected to Him, to let Him hold us!