JN 15:5 “I am the vine; 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. [6] If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers

Great, awesome.  I get it, we’re the branches and Christ is the vine.  We must remain in Him and he must remain in us.  Check, got it.  Next topic.

Yeah, but what does that mean?  To remain in Christ? Just like how a branch completely gets it’s life from the vine, we have to get our life from Christ. Wow, I didn’t help at all did I? 

I explained an analogy with something intangible. Okay, so what I should have said is we have to depend on Him – which really means to depend on stuff He said. He’s said a bunch of stuff in the Bible – do you believe it?  Do you live your life based on it?

If someone said this bridge won’t collapse if you drive over it, living your life based on their word would mean that you would cross the bridge without fear. If someone said, “Don’t worry, go to sleep, I’ll kill all the zombies that approach the house,” living your life based on trust in their word would mean that you would be able to go to sleep with no problem.

If Christ said, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear,” can you live out His Word?  Do you worry about your finances?  If you can, then you are ‘remaining’ in Him and therefore you’ll be bearing fruit – in this case the fruit of peace.

If Christ said, “Love is patient, love is kind,” when those clueless people sit at a green light for five minutes before hitting the gas – do you become a thesaurus and yell out as many synonyms of ‘idiot,’ or do you ‘remain’ in His Word and bear the fruit of love, patience and kindness?

To bear fruit, you must remain in Him, to remain in Him you must remain in His Word, to remain in His Word you must live His Word. So now we need to ask – what fruit are you bearing? Or actually should we ask ourselves, “What fruit are we NOT bearing because we are not remaining in Him?”

I’ll tell you what, there’s a whole lot of patience fruit I’m not bearing at stoplights. I mean, what else do people do at a stoplights?  It’s not like there’s a whole ton of things to keep track of.  It’s not like you’re staring at an air traffic control monitor.  You’re just waiting for one color to turn to another one.  There’s no decisions you have to make.  It’s green – you go.

Ask yourself, “What are areas of my life where I am not glorifying God?” So then you can find some verses that you can memorize so that you can consciously think about them to live them – thus bearing fruit. And while you’re at it, why don’t you try to bear the fruit of ‘paying attention at a stoplight’.

JN 15:1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. [2] 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. [3] You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. [4] 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. JN 15:5 “I am the vine; 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. [6] 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. [7] If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. [8] This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Take time to pray: Ask God to help you remain in His Word so you can live it and thus bear fruit. Today’s Fruit of the Spirit: Any of them that you need to work on. Dear Conrad, I had a couple of questions.  The first is, “What does Christ mean when He says “Ye are the branches”?  The second is, “How can you be so good looking yet so humble?”