John 15
John 15:1-27
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5 “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.
6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates Me hates My Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.
25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.’
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.
27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
Everybody wants the encounter, but with the encounter comes a choice to either continue now with Him or turn back to the familiar “before.” (v24) Jesus seems to indicate that an experience of His power is like being personally chosen to be transformed forever by His love. Now there will be direct evidence of whether we’re remaining in our place in Him or disconnecting at all for an embrace with the world. To be more than a spectator, someone who is drawing their life and all its choices from Him, is to produce “love” fruit that is unquestionable. This is the only direct command that will be served by the one who has remained in His love, but in that one fruit is the fulfillment of God’s heart for everything that is done. Without producing His love, there is no abiding in His love, and that fruit will look like serving others in self-denial. As we live every moment in His embrace that includes all of our shortcomings, so our embrace of others will include theirs. As His embrace of us in love marked Him for persecution from a world that rejects His love, so the fruit of His love from our lives will mark us for the same treatment. Through all of this remaining in Him, though, will be this incredible continuation of an encounter that will be forever with Him. This will be the Spirit-empowered testimony of a fruit-producing, world-overcoming branch that has remained in Him.
He sees the inability to produce His love fruit as hatred towards Him and love for the world. How much better for those who have tasted His goodness to remain secured there forever in the testimony of His love encounter.
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