“I am the true vine, and my father is the vinedresser.
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” –John 15:1-3.
We are tagging along listening to Jesus’ conversation with His disciples as they make their way to their place of separation. The disciples will soon discover its only an apparent separation. But much more, not only are they not left alone… they never, ever, will be alone again. This too they soon discover!
Life in a totally different realm is about to commence. The disciples will soon learn life spiritually is in grace, outside their own soul’s capacity. Once in grace, life is a culture of truth and righteousness because holiness is our new standard. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”
Grace begins to make us who we are designed to be because God created us new in Christ Jesus. This is work on several different levels. The first level is inside our spirit. We are created spiritually! We become spiritual children needing to change the priorities of loving and thinking so that they are in sync with our new Spiritual being. This is a major work assignment and a life long task, for the disciples as well as us.
Another level of grace is in our behavior. We need to “work out what God works inside.” Rather than being politically correct we need to be spiritually correct. That is, behave according to who we now are. This also is a major work assignment. Each level differs from person to person according to who and where we are when redeemed by Jesus. We are made participants in His divine nature at the time of redemption and all things pertaining to life and godliness become accessible.
This is salvation. It births us in the righteousness of Jesus and then provides the power to live His righteousness into and through our soul. Our soul, however, is still equipped with temporal habits of a fleshly self. The resurrection power of our newly created life, in Christ, needs possession of God’s divine promises. Enter, faith!
Living by faith is like shifting into warp drive leaving our soul behind. The soul is our seat of learning, loving and desiring. Faith shifts us into a different dimension and then we must bring our soul into compliance with this new divine warp drive principle of Life by faith.
Faith is the level of our belief. It is not just believing with our mind that the reality of God is now ours. No, it is believing in our heart and our will as well as our mind. It is a complete dependence upon God to do for us what we want to do for ourselves. Faith opens our soul’s door to the Spirit. We don’t actually have Jesus’ resurrection power, yet at the same time we do! It is God who actually applies His power when we depend completely on Him. This is what faith is, choosing to depend on Him while we have the choice to do it for Him.
This happens because in Christ we are now in grace. Grace is where we now stand because it is the culture of light, righteousness, truth, love and holiness. Dependence on God is a medium for growing grace, our faith! Our standard phrase is: “Faith consumes grace.” Grace is God’s culture of giving and faith us our culture of consuming. He is giving much more than we are receiving.
The more intimate we are with God through Jesus, the more we understand and discern our relationship in grace; the more we understand who we now are, the more deeply we move into faith and experience God’s power in the intimate details of life. Faith connects us into the deep provisions of God’s promises which are contained in the resurrection power of His word.
Once into God’s grace culture, we operate more and more in faith. Faith is feeding in God’s provisions for Life in Jesus’ name. The more grace we consume by faith, the more fruit is produced on our branch from The Vine.
What we have been describing brings us back to the subject at hand. Our tender new life in Jesus is about grace, faith and righteousness. It is Christ’s life of righteousness that produces our fruit. It is God’s grace that provides the ways and means to process God’s righteousness into our experience. Faith is the tool in our hand to grasp God’s grace and produce the righteousness of Jesus Christ as fruit on our branch.
Now look once more at our passage:
Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.
One of two things are going to happen. If we bear fruit, some cleaning and pruning is going to happen so that we bear more fruit. If we don’t bear fruit our branch will be cut off, thrown into the trash for disposal. If you are in Christ, life is going to get serious. This is not an easy path. Its narrow and hard! Its more about hard love than easy love but it leads into eternal glory. The issues are Life vs. death. It is up to us to choose, wisdom with scorn or folly with pleasure?
Holiness is our standard because this is who we now are in Christ! We are given the resurrected Life of Jesus within us through a glorious new creation. We previously discussed righteousness and imputed righteousness, but notice we are told here we are already made clean through the logos word given to us. This is the clean seed of God in us because we have been created Spiritually new in Christ. This is the holiness of God planted in us. God, our Vinedresser, is nurturing this seed so that righteous fruit is produced in the life of our branch. Imputed righteousness covers our tainted soul as we train it in righteousness and holiness by the Spirit.
When we venture into faith’s portals, our priorities narrow. Faith’s venue requires dependence, not the popular notion of self being all that you can be. It is being all you now are in Christ Jesus. The power comes through the choices of dependence. We are created new spiritually with access to resurrection power and Godhead wisdom to change our soul to be in compliance with God’s holiness. The power is applied through our dependence in Christ on God.
Our “tender new growth” is this level of Life in Christ Jesus. The disciples experienced being cared for by the physical presence of Jesus in the flesh. We have the Holy Spirit without a visible presence. The same Holy Spirit who came to and into the disciples with resurrection power is the same Spirit of God now dwelling in us with the same resurrection power. It is, however, much greater than a mere warp drive. Grasping this reality is, perhaps, THE major stumbling block for believing evangelical people who are already in Christ Jesus but do not live by faith in grace! Jesus’ Father is our Vinedresser! His Holy Spirit dwells in us, we are His temple. But our temple is typically adorned with clutter … God doesn’t need our clutter stuff!
He wants us to love Him, personally. The way He loves us!
His banner over us is love,
Our sword the Word of God;
We tread the road the saints above
With shouts of triumph trod.
By faith they, like a whirlwind’s breath,
Swept on o’er every field;
The faith by which they conquered death
Is still our shining shield.
Faith is the victory!
Faith is the victory!
O glorious victory
That overcomes the world!