WORD. | Day 16 | June 5, 2025

 

Day 16

John 15.

The last “I am” statement is in this chapter, i.e. “I am the Vine.”

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.” (John 15:1 NIV)

Then Jesus says in verse 5 that if we remain in Him, fruitfulness will stream from within us. However, if we live separated from Him, we are powerless. 

We have been called to go and bear fruit:

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last…” (John 15:16 NIV)

What does it mean to “remain in Him”? How do you “remain in Him”?

What does your ‘fruitfulness’ look like currently?

Scripture:

John 15

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unwavering Conformity | Day 2 | July 3, 2025

Living with the Consequences Repeated covenant-breaking has serious consequences. The flipside is that covenant-keeping has positive outcomes. Notice in this passage the central importance of Torah (law) and Israel's chronic recurrent problem of slipping back into all forms of idolatry. Modern Western society is permeated to its core with idolatry, with one particular ism extending its grasp beyond any other - materialism. Unchecked materialism has so infiltrated Christianity and other religious systems that it goes virtually unnoticed by the majority. Unless humanity, led by people of faith, can turn a corner quickly, the spiritual, interpersonal and societal consequences in today's interconnected world will hold us captive in ways ancient Israelites could have never conceived.  Following is a quotation from author, educator and environmentalist Bill McKibben's call for communities of faith to return God to the center of life: “Consumption is an issue uniquely suited for f...
Read more

Unwavering Conformity | Day 3 | July 4, 2025

Houses of Prayer; Houses of Light In anticipation of temple construction, David offers a remarkable prayer, a prayer that serves as a template or model for each of us as God's stewards. The prophet Isaiah later refers to that very temple as God's 'house of prayer' (Isa 56:7). And David himself anticipates that reality, declaring in Psalm 18:6, 'In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.' A house of prayer. In Psalm 18:28, David uses imagery that permeates Scripture, saying, 'My God turns my darkness into light.' An unmistakable message. A house of light. Pastor John Timmer relates a simple story about a house in need of light: “Once upon a time a man lived in a house without a window. Naturally, it was very dark inside his house. One day he said to himself, 'I'm sick and tired of living in a dark house. I want to get rid of the darkness. I want light i...
Read more

Unwavering Conformity | Day 19 | July 20, 2025

Stewards of God's Good Things Paul is cautioning the Colossians not to stray from the gospel of freedom in Christ and not to listen to those who would submit them to restraints of man-made religious rules. For example, Paul warns against asceticism (see Col 2:21), a renunciation of the material world that denies the body and holds that bodily pleasure is a source of sin. For Christians today, as in Paul's day, the issue is complex. How does one live in the world and properly steward physical pleasures? The culture in the current Western world tends more toward hedonism rather than asceticism. Hedonism is the philosophy that people should deny themselves nothing because the material world is all there is. The answer for Christians is balance. Neither extreme is acceptable nor Biblical. We can enjoy the good gifts of God, but we are to use them in ways that glorify God and that conform to Jesus's commands to love others and ourselves. But what does that look like, practically...
Read more