Branches by Stephen Davey

Branches
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. John 15:4 A big problem in American churches today is the idea that through integrative technology and clever marketing strategies we can somehow produce spiritual fruit. John’s point is clear: Christian’s don’t produce fruit—we only bear it.  I love the way Andrew Murray put it: The branch is nothing more than a rack from which the fruit of the vine hangs. It is the sap from the vine, coursing through the branch that produces fruit. Likewise, it is the life of Christ, flowing in us that produces anything worthwhile.  The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” We have the tendency to pin up “the fruits of the Spirit” on our refrigerator or dashboard as a weekly to-do list. We’ll say, “This week is patience week. I’m going to work on developing that fruit for the next seven days.” What happens next? We find ourselves in the midst of an intense war and often lose ground, rather than gain it.  I’m sure you’ve learned by now that relying on your own strength and ingenuity won’t work. God wants us to rely on Him for everything. He wants us to understand that we cannot live a godly life without Him.  That’s why it isn’t called the fruit of Susan, or the fruit of John, or the fruit of Stephen. It’s called the fruit of the Spirit. We are all in the same condition. It’s not that some believers are in great need of divine help and others have lesser need of it. We all need it utterly.  American mega-churches, with their seminars and sound systems and television screens and numerous staff members, need the Spirit of God as much as small Iranian churches suffering from persecution; or Chinese churches moving from house to house; or Kenyan churches that meet by a tree in the heat of the day.  Jesus didn’t tell us that we could do some things apart from Him, or that we could do a few things apart from Him, or that we could do one thing apart from Him. No. He said we could do nothing apart from Him.  There is beauty and solace in that truth, however. When we surrender to the Spirit of God, we learn to say with the apostle Paul: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).  It really is a matter of perspective. When we are content to be branches, our dependency on God becomes more consistent and, as a result, our joy becomes more complete. Corrie Ten Boom, the famous holocaust survivor and the author of The Hiding Place, once delivered this humorous parable: A woodpecker tapped with his beak against the trunk of a tree, just as lightning struck the tree and split it open. He flew away and said, “I didn’t realize there was so much power in my beak!”  Then Corrie applied the parable by saying,  “Don’t be a silly woodpecker! Know where that power has come from and to whom the credit belongs.” May we take those words to heart today.