I love this time of year; tree leaf buds are starting to swell and shoots are pushing through the once hard and resilient soil with the promise of fresh new life. I might like the greenery and flowers but green fingers I do not have. I need instructions on how to get the best out of my plants and bushes and God thinks we also need some gardening instructions in order to get the best out of our relationship with Jesus.
The scripture passage above, John 15:1-8 can be summed up as a set of gardening instructions, an incredible promise, two conditions that must be met to activate that promise and the conclusion that the whole purpose is to bring glory to God and to show those watching that we are disciples of Christ.
If you’ve ever read John 15:7 you must have wondered at the lavishness of that promise “ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you”
WOW...well that seldom worked for me...and I can’t be alone in that.
Perhaps Jesus was exaggerating or perhaps it’s for the super-duper Christians, the really spiritual ones...or perhaps we are doing or thinking something wrong?
Very often we take verses out of the bible, separate them from the teaching they are included in and wonder why they don’t work.
If you look at verses 1-6 Jesus is talking about us abiding in him, just like branches abide (we could say they are embedded) in a vine and that unless we are abiding in him, we are unable to do anything, in fact, we wither up! So, when we abide in the vine what happens is that we receive the sap (Holy Spirit) from the vine, which means the branches (us) also receive and share the temperament and desires of the vine (Jesus)
Also, Jesus says in verse 7 that his words must abide in us - is that just the words from verses 1-6? ....well no, it’s all the words, all his commands (check out verse 10 where it mentions keeping God's commandments).
By meeting these two conditions, staying in Jesus and obeying his words our desires and our thoughts are shaped by the Holy Spirit (sap) so that our desires and his become more and more the same and we become more in tune with his purposes. That’s what happens naturally in the garden, the new growth receives exactly what it needs to survive from the main body of the plant or tree and grows to be like the main plant.
God of course has a purpose in answering our Holy Spirit shaped desires, the ones that are in tune with those of Jesus, because as we ask him for these things and then by him giving us the things that we ask for he is glorified as the God who is good enough to give us what we ask for.
Of course, John also mentions some pruning and burning of branches that goes on…ouch!...not sure I like the sound of that but it’s certainly something we should look at soon.
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