Year 8, Day 263: John 15

Theological Commentary: Click Here

John 15 continues much of the same discourse that we’ve heard in the last two chapters.  He is just using different analogies.  In this chapter, He compares Himself to a vine.  If He’s the vine, we are the branches.  We abide in Him; He works in us.

If we are the branches, then we have one purpose.  Our purpose is to bear fruit.  In fact, we could say that the fruit is evidence of the fact that we do abide in Him.  Jesus tells us that without Him, we can do nothing.  Without God, we can bear no fruit.  Therefore, if we see fruit from God, it shows us that He is abiding in us.

Don’t overlook the thrust of the chapter, though.  While Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, this happens for the glory of God.  We display His fruit.  It is nice to realize that the fruit is proof of His presence in us, but the focus should be on glorifying God because of His proof than glorifying the fact that God chose to work through us.  He gets the glory, not us.

If we are walking with God, then we should be putting love on display.  After all, God is love.  His fruit, bore through us, should look like love.  This is also why Jesus tells us that we can ask anything.  If our focus is on the glory of God, then we should be asking for things that will glorify Him through His ability to display love through us.  If we are doing that, then He will give us that for which He asks.

Jesus does not end this chapter on a positive note, however.  While we focus on God’s work through us and the displays of His love, Jesus talks about hate.  The world will hate us.  It will hate us because it hates God.  The world persecuted Jesus because it did not want to submit to Him.  In a sense, the world is not content with being the branches.  Because it doesn’t want to be the branches to God’s vine, it hates Him.  Therefore, the world persecutes God.  If the world persecutes God, then it will persecute the God it sees in us.  It isn’t that the world hates us because of who we are.  The world hates us because of the God it sees in us.  The world hates us most when it sees the fruit that God bears in us.

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