dailybeacon

John 15:18-”If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.  As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.

   I don’t often talk about Jesus to people that I’m not sure of how they feel about Him.  I’m concerned that their reaction will not be positive, not even hateful, just not positive.  I’ve wondered if anyone ever turned Jesus down when He asked them to follow Him.  Then I remember that His direction from God was perfect, mine not so much.  However, that reminds me of a saying from many years ago that if I don’t feel close to God, who moved?

   Jesus knows that I will not be received well by everyone that I mention Him to, perhaps even hatefully reacted to by them.  He knows that the world, as a whole, hated Him because wherever He went He told the truth.  He was not politically correct.

He challenged wrong when He encountered it.  Centuries later, His words have been analyzed, embraced, questioned, disputed, even ignored, but the wave of public opinion rages on.  I run a greater risk because the Internet is abounding with opinion about the validity of Christ and following Him.  Few have at least not heard of Him in one context or another.  But I was chosen by Him, He says, drawn out of the darkness into His light and I am called to make a difference by spreading His reality to those I encounter.  Make disciples, He commands.  Bear fruit.  He is with me, no matter the reaction.  It’s worth the risk.  He has chosen me out of the world.  It’s worth the risk!

(8) John15:14-17You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last.  Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.  This is my commandment: Love each other. 

   Again, Jesus repeats His call for obedience.  Repetition always means importance.  If I choose to obey, He calls me friend.  I should be God’s servant.  He is the King of the universe and kings have servants, the only exceptions are family and friends.  Despite knowing everything about me, He calls me to friendship and to family and just asks obedience in return for the privilege of membership to the family of God.

   More than once I have thought about what it could be like.  I’ve read historical accounts of many Kings and their bad treatment of those under their charge, simply because they could.  God could squash me like a bug, in fact, I deserve to be squashed like a bug but instead He chooses to include me in His inner circle by openly sharing His business, His teaching, with me.  

   Jesus shared everything He knew about God the Father and chose to call me to bear His fruit on this earth, “fruit that will last.”  Jesus is the vine of life and God is the gardener who prunes me so that I bear maximum fruit or I choose to die on the vine and be burned in the scrap heap.  Again Jesus tells me that God will give me whatever I ask in His name, if I bear fruit.  Without Him, it would be a hopeless task but in reality He stacks the deck in my favor.  If I remain in Him, attached to the vine, God will prune me to be my very best, to bear much fruit and then I will receive whatever I ask for.  Because, during the process, I have grown to know Him, I will ask for what is best for me in His sight and will live a fulfilled life.  Out of gratitude, I will be able to obey one of His strongest commandments to “Love each other.”  He has said that He loves all of His creation, even the worst, for even the best have fallen way short of who He is and was while on this earth.  Can I choose my free will choice to do less?  No, I can’t.

John 15:11-13 I have told you this so that my joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 

   Jesus is telling me that if I love Him enough to obey His commandments, if I live my life seeking to bear much fruit, if I bring glory to His Father, then I have made His joy complete.  Considering all the wonderful things He has created, none complete His joy like having me be His disciple?  Knowing this to be true, because He said so, how can I ever question my value as a creation?  I do, but how can I, if I really believe what He is saying here?  How much more confident can I go through life, if I know and believe that He wants me to be a part of Him so much that His joy is not complete without it?

   To drive it home even more He says, “Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”   

   Who would I die for?  I would die to protect my wife and kids, my country, my right to faith and freedom.  Many would say noble, yes I suppose, but I need to let that truth drive home the fact that Jesus would and did die for me.  Why?  Because He has the same Father’s love that I have for my children only multiplied by the universe.  It is an incomprehensible love for my mind to understand but if I would die for my children, therefore I can at least understand the basic fact that I am God’s child and He loves me enough to die for me.  As I have forgiven the wrongs my children have committed and still loved them, in the same way, He still loves me. 

   However, He made this statement knowing that He was going to die for us all.  It wasn’t a theory but a reality.  I don’t really think I’m going to have to die for my family, could happen, but it’s just a concept.  Easy call when my life isn’t on the line.  Jesus was God.  He could have written a different script but He didn’t.  For me, He didn’t.  For me!  If I truly embrace what He did for me, how hard is it for me to love Him and commit my life to Him?  Even more, can’t I embrace this truth to love Him enough to do what He asks me to do?  For all He’s done, I want to help make his joy complete.

John 15: 9, 10 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love.  If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. (NIV) 

At first reading, I shrink from the thought.  In order to remain in Christ’s love, I have to obey his commandments.  How can I possibly do that, I a sinner?  Then, I’m reminded of when I fell in love with my wife.  I was literally motivated to do anything she asked.  I did it to earn and keep her love for me.   Isn’t that what Christ is asking of me?  Love Him enough; so much in fact, that what He asks me to do becomes more important than anything else.  Not to keep His love for me because I can’t lose it, but to demonstrate my love for Him.  I argue with myself, protesting that it’s not the same.  However, if I can commit to a person because of a desire for companionship and love, and I understand how much more that God wants to give me in a relationship with Him, why can’t I do it?   I can, not at first perhaps, but by practicing my focus on Him, I can.  Plus, He wants to help me do it and has endless patience as I learn how.  Knowing that a basic human motivation is “what’s in it for me,” how much more could be in it for me to remain in his love?  He offers an abundant life now and eternity later.  What else could be more important?  Jesus reminds me over and over that if I love Him, I will do as He asks.  Do I not expect the same from my wife and children?   His requests are for my benefit from now through eternity, whereas mine tend to be short sighted just for the now.  How much better, higher are His?  If I fulfill my end of the relationship, He is then free to fulfill His and His… is… everything!

John 15:7, 8 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (NIV) 

Wouldn’t it be great if the only requirement for me to get everything I wanted was to ask?  Actually, no it wouldn’t.   As I look back on my life there are many things that I thought I wanted.   However, I know now that getting them would have only caused innumerable problems.  A few poor choices, I did get, and problems resulted.  Yet, on the surface, that’s what it seems Christ is saying here.  “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.”  The critical parts of this equation are, “if you remain in me and my words remain in you” then ask whatever you wish.  If I know who Jesus is and study His words so that they remain in me, I will know what is best for me to ask.  If I ask for what is best for me, from God’s prospective, the answer will be yes every time.  Jesus’ prayers were answered in the affirmative every time because of His relationship with God, He knew God’s perfect will in all situations.  God’s desire is that I have a relationship with Him, that I know Him because that knowledge will give me His abundance and I will then bear much fruit.  When this sequence occurs, then, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”  My purpose must be to bring glory to God.  I do that by bearing much fruit which then shows the world God is trying to reach, that I am His disciple.  An equation for a satisfying, fulfilling life is: I study and know His word so that it is a part of my consciousness.  Because of my understanding and relationship with Christ, I know what to ask for leading me to bear much fruit.  My positive fruit is a testimony to the world around me of whom God is in my life and that brings glory to Him.  Because of my living witness, others come to know Him and I have fulfilled the “great commission” of leading others to Him.

 John 15:5, 6 “I am the vine and you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (NIV)      Jesus repeats himself from verse one of this chapter. Repetition signifies importance.  He wants us to get the importance of being attached to the true “vine”.  Life is futile without Him in our lives, a focal point of our lives.  When He says that we can’t do anything without Him, He means anything that is of lasting value to God the Father.  Of course, we can do many things without Him, but the long term legacy of those things, if not Christ centered, can only be ego centered.  Value to the world perhaps but most often leading to us being separated from Him.  The saying that “there are no atheists in foxholes” is a clear depiction of many, who while things are going well seldom think of Christ.  However, when things turn to not so well, suddenly then we tend to be very aware of Him as we make our requests for help made known.  Those are separated lives.  He makes it very clear in this passage that living separately leads to withering and dieing and then to being burned like discarded branches.  No lasting value, no lasting joy.  The world has been littered with vain attempts of going it alone.  The choice is ours: be litter or significant and satisfied. 

John 15:3, 4 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.  Remain in me, and I will 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. (NIV) 

   One of the critical parts of our walk with Christ is to be in the Word.  We did not hear Him speak but reading the Word is as if we had.  He promises that we are made clean because of hearing what He said.  What a profound promise; He speaks, we hear, we listen, we follow and all is made right with God.  All our condemned failures washed away.    However, we can only stay clean by remaining in Him, speaking to Him in prayer, studying and internalizing His words and then with his help revising the way we think and act to bring glory to the one true God.  No branch of grapes can bear fruit if it is cut away from the vine.  It withers and dies, all potential lost.  We separate ourselves from Him by the choices we make and run the risk of becoming pruning fodder.  But never forget, our bad choices are washed away by a sincere request for forgiveness and then repentance.  His desire is for us to have a satisfying, fruitful life but at the same time He’s offering the only way to get it.  He knows that without Him, lasting satisfaction is not possible.  No matter how hard we try, without Christ at the center of all we do, we settle for good when He offers great!

 John 15:1-7 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. (NIV) 

   There can be little confusion by what Jesus meant when he uttered these words.  We are called by God to bear fruit but we can’t do it on our own.  Even if we are bearing fruit for His kingdom, we are going to continue to be “pruned” so that we can bear even more fruit.     Pruning has never had a positive connotation for me because I’ve done it to rose bushes, raspberry bushes and even lilacs.  It means cutting, removing that which is dead or leads to death, to allow new life.  The end result is positive, the process not so much.  But as with anything worthwhile, if we keep our focus on the prize, the process loses its impact.  No Olympic champion has ever said in the post event interview, “all I can think about now is the pain I went through to get here,” rather the most common comment is, “no mater what I had to go through, it was all worth it!”  If we remain in Christ, our journey of faith will have the same elation at its completion for us