Red Letters/Black Letters: Day 117: To flower is to bloom is to reach beyond

"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, 

bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." John 15:5

an aside: there is a difference in talking about what you believe in a positive light as opposed to talking about what you believe in the negative light of what someone else believes

Here Jesus lets us know that we have a choice, we can choose to abide in him or to not abide in him. As we looked at yesterday to not abide means to be cut off, to be a dead stick on the ground. We die as in we lose life and purpose, but we do not lose breath. I think that is an important point in conjunction with the end of this verse where Jesus says that without him we can do nothing. In strict language that is not true, we can accomplish quite a lot without Jesus, to deny that is to deny our eyes and experiences. There are a whole host of people who accomplish great things while never believing in Jesus or in God at all. We have been created to be amazing, and we can be with or without God. We can be the best dead stick on the ground.

On the other hand, if we choose to remain in Jesus we can be something more. By being connected to that which is greater than ourselves we thus become greater ourselves. In the next couple verses we are told that if we remain in Jesus 3 things will happen to us: we will bear fruit, Jesus's words will remain in us, and our prayers will be answered. These three things are the something that we can only do completely being connected.

1) We will bear fruit: people will be reached and loved and learn to love in return. Through our connection the whole world can be impacted, not to fill up church pews but to increase the quotient of love in the world and to decrease the quotient of hate.

2) His words will remain in us: we will constantly be made better. We will be better friends, better siblings, better parents, better children, and ultimately better disciples. With or without belief we can be improved, but we will never reach the true potential of what a human can be.

3) Our prayers will be answered: if we are in the vine then the things we ask will be for the betterment of the Kingdom of God and the people around us. By aligning ourselves to Jesus we lose our selfish desires, lose our selfish attitudes, and lose our selfish prayers our desires then become Kingdom desires, our attitudes, Kingdom attitudes, and our prayers, Kingdom prayers.

+ Do you agree that you have been improved since you began to believe in Jesus?