“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” (John 15:1)

^“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

Abiding in the vine is the dynamic of spiritual life, without which nothing can be accomplished in the believer’s life. No abiding means no growth, no fruitfulness, no joy for the Lord through a life well-lived for His glory. Nothing could be more fundamentally important for a Christian than abiding in Christ. Jesus said in our passage, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.”

An exhaustive study of the original Greek language, searching the lexicons of the ancient Greek and the cognate languages of that day, results in this conclusion: The word “nothing” does in fact mean “nothing”! All the major English translations render the Greek word as “nothing.” There is absolutely nothing that anyone can do apart from Christ.

We must take careful and serious note of this seemingly benign observation. How much of the so-called Christian life is caught up in the superficial, non-essential things? The apostle Paul writes of “matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence” (Col 2:23). Focusing on such matters is not abiding in Christ.

One can go through the motions of the spiritual disciplines without abiding in Christ, and a superficial congregation of believers would never know the difference. Imagine drawing a picture of grapes on a sheet of paper with crayons, then going into an orchard and taping it onto a grapevine. Even if a Rembrandt or Michelangelo were commissioned to create a magnificent painting on canvas of a cluster of grapes, hanging that picture on a vine would not bring fruitfulness. Neither you nor those Renaissance masters could generate anything compared to the genuine fruitfulness that God produces on branches that are connected to (abiding in) the vine. The first drop of rain would mock the fake fruit.

So too, with the Christian life, fruitfulness can be contrived through our own human efforts and disciplines. But only the nourishment of being vitally connected to Christ, through drawing life through Him, will produce real fruit in our lives. There are no substitutes or quick growth schemes. We are fruitful as believers when we continue to trust in Christ in every aspect of our lives.

Lord, where You are is where I want to be, connected to You in every way.