Abiding

"I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken."Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. "I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.

I learn things the best when I can see a physical representation of the lesson that is being taught. I really like the parables of Jesus and the analogies he would so often use with physical objects around him. In John 15- I would have been completely lost with all the words and phrases “abide in me,” if not for the mental picture Jesus gave to the disciples to illustrate his point.
Looking outside- as we see the leaves on the trees, flowers blooming, “life” is a very easy mental picture to have of this time of year. But as you start doing some yard work, the one thing everyone has left over from the winter is dead sticks. What happens that these sticks are no longer a part of the tree, and are good for nothing except to be tossed on a burn pile?


1 John 3 is a chapter that deals with how believers are to love one another, to walk in truth and make no practice of sinning, and finally the last section which speaks of how to practically love one another. But again, as in John 15, this idea of “abiding in Christ.”

“No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen or known him.”
Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

This idea of abiding in Christ is painting all over the Scriptures.
Two different aspects of abiding in Jesus are painted in this passage. First, those who abide in Christ cannot continue repeating in sin, and secondly those who are truly abiding in Christ are loving one another.

I’d like to take you for a bit on a journey with me to the Chronicles of Narnia and a scene between Aslan and Lucy in the following dialogue:

"Are you thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I'm DYING of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I-could I-would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill
gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked
the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly
frantic.
"Will you promise not to-do anything to me, if I come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step
nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors,
cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting,
nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"O dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and
look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

Picture walking beside Jesus and he stops beside the tree and gives the illustration of the vine and branches. “Without being joined to be you can’t produce a thing.”
Sometimes the conversation between me and the Lord goes something like Jill and Aslan,
“Well, perhaps then I’ll find something a little easier. This pruning sounds terrifying. Could I maybe still abide in you and get the benefits but not have you do that pruning part?”
“I make no such promise to that.” –Jesus
“Will you take over my life?”- Me
“Anyone who follows me must take up his Cross and follow me daily.”
“Oh, that sounds so hard. I daren’t take such a load.”
“Then you will surely die.”
“Oh my, then I must go and look for another way to this!”
“There is only one road.”

How much I miss out on in life by my refusal to be truly abiding in the Vine. So much joy I lose because I am stuck in my own games of excuses for why I continue in sin, why it’s “too hard” to love that one person, why that one area of pruning the Lord wants to do just “isn’t necessary.” Sitting there dying of thirst- but my own stubbornness and pride screaming at me to continue the conversation and arguments instead of laying it down and going to the living water.
The message version of the end of this chapter says:


"My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us. "

“His deep and abiding presence.” That’s what we miss when we refuse to abide in the Vine. Dead sticks worth nothing but to be thrown on a burn pile.
It's not some far off concept. It's like walking in the truth- day to day choices and decisions. How much of my heart does the Lord have? Is He really the Lord of my thoughts, my time, money, choices, motives, love toward others, giving, etc. Am I allowing Him to do His pruning in my life? Am I standing looking at the stream, talking about it, longing for it, but never really going there?
Or am I going there even though there's no such promises it will be safe, or comfortable, but knowing the living water is the only way to true joy, satisfaction, and salvation?

How well are we doing at abiding in the Vine? I would venture to say we could see the answer by looking around us and asking really honestly- how well am I loving others and how much am I fleeing from sin?