The passage I meditated on this week:

In this past week’s blog post, I wrote that one of my challenges was for everyone to find one passage to meditate on for the whole week.  The passage that I chose to meditate on was John 15:1-17.   I meditated on it everyday, and then I would write down something new that I discovered and thought about from the passage.  Because I read through this passage once a day this week, there were different items that popped up to me, and they are not in the order that the chapter goes in. 

Day 1: I originally chose this passage because I was reading about it in the book, “Jesus” by Charles Swindoll.  He wrote something that hit me hard, especially if you know how I am struggling with feeling inadequate, yet feeling like I need to do everything.  This passage states that a person can not bear any fruit unless they remain in God, similar to how a branch can not bear fruit without being attached to the vine.  Often, we want to believe that we can achieve our life goals, create a ministry, and get all of our works done (essentially creating fruit) without God.  We can’t.  I can’t.  It has been a hard thing for me to accept, but the truth of the matter is that I can not.  I am not meant to.  I am God’s workmanship or vine to reach the world, but I am not meant to leave his side or go AWOL and do it on my own.  If I continue to try to do life on my own, apart from God, I will only end up doing more and more work, and it will not be profitable.  

As I read through this passage on day two, I was struck by how much this passage talks about God’s love and how we as his people need to stay in his love in order to feel his full love and joy.  This is seen in verses 10 and 11, “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.”  There is undeniable joy that comes from abiding in the Lord’s love.  Yes that may mean needing to obey his commandments and make sure that we are doing the hard tasks, but that is the way that we will always continuously feel his love.  This is also why we need to make sure we spread that love to the others around us.   

On the third day, I noticed that the passage really wants to highlight that God is the gardener and will get rid of all the fruits/vines that don’t bear any fruit.  When a gardener prunes, they cut off branches in order that the dead areas can be removed to make room for new life and life-giving branches to come in.  It can be really difficult to go through the pruning process.  It isn’t easy to get things cut off from us and to be changed in healthier ways, but at the end of the day that is going to be something that really gets us to be in a better position than we were before.  The Lord has to sometimes use experiences that are not the most easy or the most encouraging in order to grow more fruit or to become more and more Christ-like.  The Lord knows that there are times when we may have to grow through experiences that we don’t necessarily always enjoy, but if this is going to help us grow as Christ followers and help us spread God’s word, then it is worth the hard process.    

On the fourth day, I really noticed the last couple of verses.  This includes verse 16 which I will lay out here, “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.”  The Lord has chosen us.  Isn’t that a wonderful and amazing feeling? The Lord has chosen us to be someone who can spread God’s word and be God’s workmanship.   There can be times when we can feel really inadequate and not meant for anything, but the Lord has seen our potential through working through him and knows that we can bear him fruit.  Don’t ever feel as though you can’t be used by God.  If he has chosen you for something, he doesn’t make mistakes.  

On the fifth day, I noticed verse 8 which says, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”  When we allow the Father to work in us and to work through us, we bear much fruit.  When we bear that fruit, then we will show the world God’s glory.  We will be the Lord’s disciples and that is how the Father’s message will get out.  This, again, though, will only happen when the Lord is at work.  We can not be God’s disciples without the help of himself.  Another thing that I noticed from that day five was that those who don’t abide with the Lord, will be ones who wither and fall away.  We again won’t be able to fully prosper for the Lord if we are not abiding in him.  Burnout is a very real feeling, and it will happen when we are trying to do too much without the Lord on our side.  

I know this is different from a usual blog post for me, but I think that it is important that I take my challenges that I write in my current blog posts seriously.  I knew that spending time writing about the passage I spent time with this week was a good way to hold me accountable and make sure I take a deep look at just one small passage from the Lord.  It was a very good feeling to read over this passage and really take in the truths that are held in 17 verses.  I would love to hear the passages you pored over this past week if you had any, or if you are going to plan on doing that this following week.