Abide in Me

John 15:4-5, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”

I believe that every Christian should have the desire to produce fruit. I wrote a post about that before which you can read here. As a Christian, our life is like a branch. When a tree produces fruit, the branch is the location on the tree where the fruit grows. The Bible says that Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. Though the branch produces the fruit, the branch does not do all the work in and of itself. The branch gets much, if not all, of what it needs from the vine and the rest of the tree. That is why we must be sure that we are abiding in Christ. If we abide in Christ, He will help us produce the fruit that we ought to produce.

John 15:1-2 says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” If we are not producing fruit, Jesus said the Father will take the branch away. The branches that do produce fruit, the Bible says God purgeth it. To purge would be to remove the unwanted or unnecessary. The Greek word for purgeth means to cleanse. The Bible says that God will cleanse us so that we can produce as much fruit as we can. Let us determine today that we are going to abide in Christ. Let us allow Christ to cleanse us so that we can produce as much fruit as we can in our Christian life.