Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.” (John 15:5)
In today’s reading, Jesus makes the final of the seven “I am” statements that are recorded in the Gospel of John. Ministering during a time where farming was still a common way of life, Jesus often made illustrations from agriculture because it provided a way for his disciples and other listeners to understand what the kingdom of God was like. Following this trend, in this passage, Jesus calls himself the “great vine.” What did Jesus mean by this?
For a successful harvest, it is necessary for grape branches to be attached to a vine. The vine provides nutrients and stability that enables the grape branches to bear fruit. In the same way, in our Christian walk, we need a heart that is continuously reliant on Jesus in order to grow more like him.
Bearing fruit shows that we are Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8). However it is important to remember that our works do not save us but by God’s grace through faith – a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). Although we may intellectually accept this wonderful truth, we may notice that our day to day lives do not reflect that we truly believe it. We may feel that we have to prove our worthiness to God in some way. We may treat spiritual disciples such as meditating on Scripture, prayer, and fasting as a way to earn God’s favor instead of doing them as an act of worship. However, the Scriptures constantly remind us that we are truly secure and no one or anything cannot snatch us from God’s hands.
To conclude, the Christian life is one that is highly dependent on God. God chooses us (John 15:16), he provides us our daily needs (Matthew 6:11, 32-24), and he empowers us to live faithfully to him to full completion (Philippians 1:6). We must flee from thinking that we live the Christian life on our own strength and ability. The biblical teaching that we are dead in our sins and absolutely incapable of saving ourselves is countercultural to today’s popular belief that we can do anything if we set our mind to it. Let us trust God’s Word that when we are weak, we are actually strong because God’s power is made more evident in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Let us remain in the Vine because he gives us life.