“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also 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.
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. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourself to be my disciples.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: love each other.” John 15:1-17
Living a life rooted in Christ at times can be very difficult. To die to yourself daily, walking by faith, and submitting to the ways of Christ is by no means easy, but leads to true freedom. I say it is not easy because quite often, I find myself getting in my head trying to figure out how to walk like Christ would, being hard on myself, and feeling stretched in ways that are often times uncomfortable. I sometimes forget the one thing that living a life rooted in Christ is truly about – abiding in Him. To be rooted in loving Christ allows all else to flow with ease. By loving Christ, we allow His Spirit to move through us and it is not our own works, but His love that reflect from us simply as a byproduct of abiding. In Matthew 11:29-30, it says “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” When one considers what a Christian walk looks like, it can seem overwhelming. To abandon addictions, preferences, selfish motives, and identities does not seem comfortable, nor does it sound enticing to the flesh. Through my walk with Christ, the most difficult things I tried to surrender were the ones I tried to surrender by my own hand in an attempt to earn love and the easiest were the ones were the ones I surrendered through His love, the one who laid down His life for me, the one who picked me up from the lowest and darkest places and brought me into eternal life, the one who loved me perfectly before I was even a thought and continues to love me the same, and will for the rest of eternity. The “yoke” that is being referred to in this passage would be a load that a horse would carry. I would imagine that the load of life would look like a bunch of heavy things piled into a crate, all the sins that need to be surrendered, all the offenses that others have committed against us, piled high. Trying to carry a load like this seems a little extreme, if we could even get in a few steps, I’m sure we’d fall over. I imagine, then, that the yoke of Jesus looks just like this, but instead, a blanket of His love covers the load whole, and takes the full weight of the load off. Now walking with the yoke is easy because the burden has been made light once we allowed the blanket of love to take off every ounce of what was once weighing us down. As branches cannot bear fruit without the vine, neither can we bear good things without abiding in the Father.
We so often complicate our faith so much more than it needs to be. We are first called to love God and one another, from that place, HIS SPIRIT flows, not our works, not our talents, not anything from us, but His Spirit. His love for us is not on the basis of our good works or how well we use the giftings He has given us, His love is on the basis of His character, the author of love.
