You Are the Brances

When God Calls your Name He Says you are One of the Branches
(from Names of the Believers © 1997 by John M. Koessler. All rights reserved.)

John 15:5, I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing. AMP

When my son Andrew was four years old, he once came home from Sunday school clutching a small Styrofoam cup, into which he had lovingly placed a single marigold seed. The next morning he jumped out of bed, took the cup down from the windowsill, and immediately burst into tears. Alarmed, my wife, Jane, asked him what was wrong.

"There's no flower!" he wailed. "My teacher said that there was supposed to be a flower."

Jane explained to Andrew that it would take time for the flower to grow and that he would need to water it regularly and keep the cup on the windowsill so that it would get enough sunlight. He did, and sure enough, after a few days a small sprout had pushed its way through the dirt in search of sunlight. Soon, a tiny marigold plant was flourishing in Andrew's cup. It eventually grew so large that it had to be transplanted to the flower bed in front of our house.

Like my son with his marigold seed, we usually think of growth as something that happens automatically. To some extent this is true. The farmer plants the seed and waits patiently for the harvest. And we parents watch our children grow without thinking much about the process of physical development. But even in instances like these, certain conditions must be met before growth can take place. The farmer plants the seed, spreads fertilizer on the ground, and cultivates the plant. My children grow naturally, but the measure of their growth can be affected by their diet.

The same is true in the spiritual realm. In John 15:5, Jesus compares Himself to the vine and His people to its branches. The metaphor of the vine is used several times in the Old Testament to refer to God's people. In Ps 80:8-9, the nation of Israel is compared to a vine transplanted from Egypt. The psalmist speaks there of the care God gave the vine when it was planted and describes how it flourished. The prophet Isaiah also compares Israel to a vine and describes how God prepared the ground, planted a choice vine, and watched over the vineyard.

Jesus takes this same metaphor and alters it slightly. According to John 15, Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The emphasis on the importance of producing good fruit remains in these verses, but Jesus reveals the conditions that must be met before spiritual growth can take place. He tells us that the most important prerequisite for growth is that the branch must be connected to the vine (John 15:2). This illustrates that Jesus alone is the source of spiritual life. If we are not in Christ, that is, if we have never wholly trusted Him for eternal life, then we have no life.

In the natural realm, no matter how much water a farmer pours on a dead branch or how often he fertilizes the ground around it, the branch will never produce fruit. And regardless of how suitable the environment around us may be for spiritual growth, if we are not attached to Christ by faith, then we will derive no benefit from it.

The second condition Jesus emphasizes in these verses is that of abiding or "remaining" in Christ (John 15:5). While Christ alone is the source of our spiritual life, we bear a certain amount of responsibility for the degree of our spiritual growth. This is why we are commanded to remain in Christ in order to bear fruit. The New Testament word that is used here emphasizes relationship.

Jesus guarantees spiritual life, but He does not necessarily guarantee the quality of that life. Like physical growth, the measure of my spiritual growth is affected by how well I nourish myself. Spiritual nourishment, like physical nourishment, is determined by what I take in. And in order to abide in Christ, I must nourish myself on God's Word. "See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father" (1 John 2:24). As with the food I eat, this is something that must be done daily.

In addition to proper nourishment, we need exercise in order to be healthy. Exercise contributes to my spiritual health, just as it does to my physical health. I exercise myself in the Christian life when I take God at His word and obey His commands. If I obey Christ's commands, I remain or "abide" in His love (John 15:10). I can only do this if I realize that the power to obey comes from Christ Himself. I can do nothing apart from the power that He supplies (John 15:5).

Prayer is the third factor that affects my spiritual growth. Jesus promised that if I abide in Him and His words abide in me: ". . . ask whatever you wish and it will be given you" (John 15:7). In this respect, we have an advantage in our spiritual growth that surpasses its physical counterpart.

When I was in college, a girl that I was interested in stopped dating me because I was not tall enough. She had always dreamed of marrying someone who was over six feet tall. Hours of prayer could not have changed the fact that I was just two inches short of her standard. In the spiritual realm, however, I have often had growth spurts that were answers to prayer. Even in the best of conditions, my physical growth is limited by my heritage and genetic makeup. But in the spiritual realm, the full measure of Christ is my only limit.

Author and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was so proud of his Massachusetts orchard that he spent many hours writing there and, whenever possible, received guests among its trees. He was proud enough of his skill in tending the orchard's pear trees that he sent a sample to the local agricultural fair and was soon rewarded by a visit from several members of a horticultural society. However, as he showed them around the orchard, Emerson discovered that it was not the trees that interested them, but the dirt. They wanted to know what kind of soil had produced such terrible specimens from so worthy a species of tree.

The point of this story is simply this: How well you grow depends upon where you are planted. For the Christian, the most important prerequisite for spiritual growth is to be rooted in Christ.

Heavenly Father, help me to abide in Christ by continuing to study His Word and to obey. Enable me to grow to the full measure of the stature of Christ. Amen.

Thanks to John Koessler for allowing us to publish his material.www.johnkosessler.com
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John Koessler serves as chair and professor of pastoral studies at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. He is married to Jane and has two sons, Drew and Jarred. John is the author of ten books and numerous articles. He also serves as a contributing editor for the Moody Bible Institute publication Today in the Word, where you can read his monthly “Theology Matters” column. You can contact John via email at John.Koessler@moody.edu or by phone at (312) 329-4077.