Remain

I’m the queen of focusing on the wrong things.

My daughter makes an amazing piece of eight-year-old art and declares it dedicated to her mom (that’s me!)—and I silently lament the sea of paper covering the floor and the glue stick smashed into the table.

A long-lost friend says she and her family are coming to visit for a weekend—and I spend more time worrying about the condition of the guest room than rejoicing in the long conversations to come.

And here, in John 15, Jesus says this: “Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me” (15:4–5).

But do you know what I hear? I hear, “Bear fruit.”

I, the queen of focusing on the wrong things, read Jesus’ words and hear all of the goal and none of the grace. I want the end but forget the means.

Yes, bear fruit. Yes, love others. Yes, give grace to a world that will misunderstand and even hate us. But Jesus is not commanding his disciples to bear fruit. The command is to remain! When we remain—when we abide in the never-ending, unconditional, forever love of Christ—then the fruit will come. But only then.

We bear fruit when, and only when, we are grafted into the True Vine. His Holy Spirit in us is the fruit producer; we are simply the branches who have the privilege of displaying his fruit. Remaining in him—resting, dwelling, abiding in him—is the only source of our strength, our goodness, our fruit. Let’s focus our eyes on the True Vine today.

Amanda Bible Williams is a general editor, along with Raechel Myers, of the She Reads Truth Bible. Taken from the She Reads Truth Bible (www.SheReadsTruthBible.com). Scripture quotations within the devotional text are from the Christian Standard Bible translation. Published by Holman Bibles, used by permission.