“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5 is such a powerful verse, for many reasons. But one of the reasons I think this verse is powerful is because it sets the outline of how our relationship with Jesus should be, with us remaining with Jesus as He with us, and us with Him, as bride and groom. But what does that even mean? To remain in Christ. And how do the surrounding verses help our understanding of this? Well, let’s talk about it.
Chapter One: The Vine And The Branch
“I am the vine; you are the branches.”
So when I think of vines, I think of grape vines, so we are going to be looking at this like a grape vine. Let’s understand how grape vines work.
To continue my thought, let’s read another verse.
‘By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
To form the analogy – If Jesus is our vine, and we are the branch, then our fruits should look like the plant. Here is another way to put this: if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, then you will act like him and you will follow the commands he has set. So you follow him more, if you remain with him, and the byproduct of you remaining with him is that your fruits will come from him. But how do we remain with him?
Chapter Two: To Remain
re·main1
1: a: to be a part not destroyed, taken, or used up
b: to be something yet to be shown, done, or treated
2: to stay in the same place or with the same person or group
3: to continue unchanged
I think understanding the meaning behind the word Remain is a wonderful start to our understanding of what this verse is talking about. Here, let’s look at some other ways we can read this verse.
- “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you continue to be unchanged in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.”
2. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you stay in the same place as me and I with you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.”
I think that these are some wonderful ways to read this verse, especially example two: If you stay in the same place as me and I with you, you will bear much fruit. Now, if that doesn’t give you goosebumps, I don’t know what will.
Let’s explore how to actually remain with Christ.
Spiritual Discipline –
Spiritual discipline is the act of constantly remaining with Christ. Let’s look over a book about spiritual discipline
Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – Donald S. Whitney
The Book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald S. Whitney covers a vast number of spiritual disciplines, but for the sake of time, we will be covering just a couple of them.
BIBLE INTAKE –
In this chapter, Donald says something I can’t agree with more: “If we don’t discipline
ourselves to hear God’s Word regularly, we may hear it only accidentally,
just when we feel like it, or never hear it at all. “2 We can’t have a relationship with God if we can’t hear his words, and if we don’t hear his words, how will we follow his commands? The simple answer is, we can’t! So reading the Bible is one of the most important spiritual disciplines to do. But you can’t just read the Bible and be fine; you will also need to pray. Praying and reading the Bible go hand and hand. It’s like butter and toast, Milk and cookies, Ranch and fries… Just me? Anywho, while we are talking about prayer, let’s break it down a little.
PRAYER –
In addition to the words of Jesus, the unmistakable expectation of God from
the rest of the New Testament is that we pray.
Colossians 4:2, “Continue steadfastly in prayer.” People who
“continue steadfastly in prayer” have devoted themselves to pursuing a
Christlike life where prayer is an ongoing priority.3Donald S. Whitney
Again, Donald says something I can’t agree with more. But to simplify His chapter on prayer, let’s break it down to – Prayer is the cornerstone of our relationship with Jesus. You can not remain with Jesus if you do not pray with him. And no, that’s not a typo, prayer is talking with our Lord Jesus. Prayer is not just “Dear God – I want ____ and thank you for ____, amen.” Prayer is having a conversation with God. That means you need to listen to his word. You see why I said reading the Bible and praying go hand and hand. And of course, there are thankful prayers, like before you eat, and other types of prayers. But I wanted to emphasize how important it is to hear God’s word when you pray.
SILENCE AND SOLITUDE –
Sometimes silence is observed in order to read the Bible, meditate on Scripture, pray, journal,
and so on. Though there is no outward speaking, there may be intentional, biblical self-talk or prayer to God.4Donald S. Whitney
If you have ever gone to church camp, you may have had to do some quiet time. You would go find a place alone with your Bible and notebook and just exist with God. Well, that is what Donald is talking about when he says silence and solitude. It’s taking time out of your busy life just to slow down, and be with God, no people, no social media, no distractions, just you, God, and his word. You know how I said reading the Bible and praying is like butter and toast, well, quiet time with God is the plate that holds that toast. Of course, you can eat the toast without a plate, but you will have a much better experience eating the toast with a plate. It’s the same thing with quiet time: you don’t need a quiet time to pray or read your Bible, BUT you will have a whole lot better experience with God when you have one. Quiet time is a way of telling God, “I’m taking time out of my busy life to be with just you, God, because I love you and want to be with you.”
Now we understand how to remain with Christ, let’s move on to the next chapter –
Chapter Three: Sweet But Bitter Fruit
Let’s read some of the surrounding verses of John 15:5 –
‘ 1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.2He 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.3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. 4No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Let’s focus mainly on verse two, and more specifically on the word “prune.”
Now, what is pruning? –
“Pruning is when you selectively remove branches from a tree. The goal is to remove unwanted branches, improve the tree’s structure, and direct new, healthy growth.”5
Now that I have all the ingredients, let me from the analogy. When we remain in Jesus Christ through our spiritual disciplines, we will bear the fruits of Jesus. After we start producing his fruit, we must allow the Father to take away the things that make us unhealthy. Let me rephrase that – We must allow the Father to prune us, to take away the things that make us less like him. Take away the things that distract us from the Vine of Jesus, and only then will we be remaining in Jesus Christ fully.
Allowing the Father to take away these things for us is not easy, but it is simple. If we remain with Jesus, the Spirit will speak to us, and all we have to do is listen to it for it. It may be a small voice in your head saying “*pist* don’t do that” or even “*Pist* go pray for that person.” But if you’re not sure that is the Holy Spirit speaking to you, you can double-check with the words of God(the Bible).
But occasionally, you won’t even notice the Father pruning you till he wants you to. Sometimes the Father will prune you without warning or explanation in the moment. But when he does warn you, you should be ready for it.
To continue my thought from before, another way that the holy Spirit will speak to you is through people. It may be your Mom, Dad, Brother, Pastor, or even some random guy on the internet. It may not be clear at first when it’s God speaking to you, but when God wants you to know it’s him, he will make it clear it’s him. Here is an example: for a week straight, I was hearing the same phrase over and over again: my Mentor, my Boss, my Mom. and they were all saying the same thing – To slow down. But it was not them saying it, it was God saying it. After a week of hearing the same phrase over and over again, I finally decided to listen to it. And I slowed down. After slowing down, I realized I was really depressed and that my mental health had gone to crap. I was grinding so hard for my future that I did not have time for my Now. So I did what God told me to do all week, I slowed down, and allowed the Father to prune me, allowed the Father to slow me down. By allowing the Father to prune me, I got happier, more joyful, and I hungered for the lord more. And I had time for the things that brought me joy. I was able to show the fruits of Jesus more when the Father pruned me. And that’s the key idea of the Father pruning you, is that you become more like Jesus, and that’s what happened.
When the lord pursues you, it may be something small, like not watching that one TV show, or it may be something BIG, like removing a family member from your life. But whatever it is, you should know God is taking it away for your own good. God knows the ins and outs of our bodies; he knows what we need and what we don’t need.
‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ‘
The END!!!!
Now that’s a lot to take in, so let me break it down so you can apply it more easily.
We are told to remain in Jesus, and we do that by spiritual discipline, but the byproduct of us remaining with Jesus is that the Father will prune us to be more like him. Now GO REMAIN WITH JESUS!!
and highly recommend Donald’s book (here’s a link for it – Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life)
Footnotes –
- Merriam-Webster: remain ↩︎
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – Donald S. Whitney: chapter 2, Page 34 PDF, In Book Page 23 ↩︎
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – Donald S. Whitney: Chapter 3, Page 111 PDF, In Book Page 81 ↩︎
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life – Donald S. Whitney: Chapter 10, Page 265 PDF, In Book Page 224 ↩︎
- Davey – What is Pruning? The Importance, Benefits and Methods of Pruning ↩︎
