If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
Message: Burning Branches
Time: John most likely wrote between A.D. 85 and 90. John's purpose in writing was, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name (John 20:31)."
What the Lord is Saying: That lesson yesterday was interesting and the idea that I looked at later that Jesus is the true vine of Israel and the branches are now us, His followers. He starts to shift His focus to abiding in Him and the importance of this. Verse 3 I looked at yesterday, "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you" is an interesting verse I didn't comment on. Looking at the commentators, I saw this from theologian Matthew Poole (1624-1679):
Now that the traitor is gone out from you, ye are all clean; not by any works which you do, much less upon the account of any legal and ceremonial rites and purifyings; but through my word, your believing and obeying, Ephesians 5:26 1 Peter 1:22. Our cleansing is in holy writ attributed sometimes to the blood of Christ, sometimes to the Spirit, sometimes to the word. By the blood of Christ we are made clean as to justification, washed; but yet we had need wash our feet, contracting soil every day in a sinful world, from which we are cleansed by the purifying virtue of the Holy Spirit, working by and together with the word, which purgeth us of our dross, and maketh us obedient to the will of God.
What an interesting take on this, The words spoken to the disciples and speaking to their state of being clean, purified. They are clean because of the Word spoken by Jesus. The blood justifies us, but still in our daily life we are cleansed by the Holy Spirit working with the Word of God to make us obedient to the will of God. It is only the blood that justifies us and makes us clean.
But now here in verse 6 seems to be a further explanation possibly of verse 2, "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away." That verse spoke of bearing fruit and in verse 6 Jesus mentions, "not abiding in Me." Abiding to me is simply the conclusion now of every believer once justified by faith. Abiding starts with faith and then continues with praying, obedience with the Holy Spirit as our purifying agent in the world to make us obedient to the will of God. To me, the Christian without works is a dead faith. I don't think this means though works justify us, but the works are a result of our salvation and the true Christian does work.
As I was speaking to my wife we were thinking of a friend recently that has cut herself off from any interaction with her parents because of years of being offended by them, of feeling oppressed and in response she has purged these people from her life. But those people are believers in Christ. She has simply decided that their presence in her life is against her nature. It seems odd. I mean it is one thing for the Christian to want to not embrace the cares of the World, but to take this position toward people of faith. The question arose of whether she is a Christian and if she ever was if she can take this continual position of not having love for her neighbor, her provider, her father/mother. It has created now an animosity and a tit-for-tat by her sister and family. Now, I don't believe that is right either. I think the parent and sister must continue to display themselves as wanting the relationship and opening their arms back up to her the moment she comes back. It is simply sad to see this stubbornness that is present.
I mention this in wonder of this idea of abiding and what it looks like in the life of a Christian and how it needs to look and display itself. As people of faith, we need to have a desire to be purified completely by God's word, not simply in part. And yet the way this friend is displaying herself is similar to the dogmatic view that many of faith hold in regards to their own understanding of scripture and fettering out all others that do not hold to the same conviction.
My point is the point that I think is addressed in this scripture and it is one whereby the Christian is always and constantly seeking for ways to better conform themselves to the way of Christ. We want to be people that bear fruit and so we need to constantly make sure our lives our working in this direction.
As learned previously, sometimes people are simply wanting to be acknowledged as a member of the visible church, the church that they believe they should be rather than surrendering themselves completely to God and His word and be a member of God's invisible church. We are not simply to be counted as accepting by a person, but counted as being accepted by God.
I have a person that has been asking me a question recently of whether him committing suicide will result in God banishing him to hell. He is looking for my opinion and I want him to look to God for His opinion, not mine. Let God define this in His life, not me.
Summary: In abiding, we need to be people that our lives look like our faith. In trusting in Christ, abiding in Him is a life of living, asking God to prune, so that our lives are marked by fruit.
Promise: Professing Christians who are not bearing fruit, even meager fruit, have no warrant to believe they are actually saved.
Prayer: O God, you are good. You are glory and you are perfect and you are my ideal. You have chosen Me for some reason I do not know, but I do know as I surrender to You and yield my life to You, good things happen and You do indeed bear fruit in my life. It is not because of me, but because of You in me. I am marveled by this. It is easy for me to think that I am the one that is doing the great work, but let me keep the glory on You. And I pray that I continually have this desire to bear fruit.
Note: If you are interested in other studies/devotions, check out my index of Bible Study's.
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