Abide.

“Abide in Me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.” –John 15:4

One of the first mission trips I took as a new youth minister was a trip to Schertz, TX, a suburb of San Antonio. Our job for the week was to take a house that had been completely submerged and destroyed by flooding waters and remove all of the furniture, books, and appliances that resided inside the home. It was the last day of the mission and the last item we had to get out of the home was the refrigerator. With five junior high youth surrounding me, we grabbed that fridge and slowly maneuvered it out of the home. All was going swell until the unthinkable happened: we did not secure the doors to the refrigerator and they opened allowing the contents to spill forth. Honestly, for a brief moment I thought the rapture had happened as everyone within a three hundred yard radius around me vanished due to the smell. In that moment, it was me, that refrigerator, and that odor that was a direct result of being disconnected from power for three months.

In John’s Gospel, there are three chapters where Jesus speaks to His disciples in regards to the Holy Spirit. In John 14, Jesus shares a moment in the upper room with His disciples speaking to them of the promise of the Holy Spirit. In John 16, He speaks of the works of the Spirit, but in chapter 15, Jesus talks of “vines and branches”. On the other side of the promise and before the works of the Spirit, Jesus saw an opportunity for a visual lesson and shared with His disciples the need and necessity to be connected to the vine. Jesus said, “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me”.

I am struck by this moment Jesus shares with His disciples. You can sense the compassion and love in the way He speaks to them. Jesus knows that the cross is before Him. He also knows that, on the other side, death would not win but he would be returning to His Father. Therefore, in this moment, Jesus is reminding His disciples about an essential truth in receiving and seeing the power of the Holy Spirit at work in their lives: they must be connected to the true vine, Jesus[1].

Just as this was relevant to His disciples then, it’s just as relevant to each of us today. I believe that, in our North American culture, Satan doesn’t have to do a lot to distract us from the mission Christ has called us to; we do a pretty good job of that on our own. Don’t believe me? Try this. The next time you’re at a red light in your car, take a look at the cars that are around you. I would guess the majority of those waiting at a red light are looking at their phones seeing what the latest Facebook status update is, the latest tweet, the latest news from pop culture. As I reflect on this scripture from John 15, I wonder what our lives would look like if we abided more in His word and truth and less in what culture says is of value.

I find that when I am not connected to the Father through prayer and the study of His word, my spiritual life doesn’t smell good. That’s why it’s so important to be disciplined in abiding and remaining connected to the vine for it is there where we find true life.

[1] See John 15:1