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John 15:4-5 (NKJV)
4 Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
5 I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
In the above scriptures, it is clear that we need God. It is also clear that we need God to produce the fruit that God intends to be produced. Simply, we experience God’s intended results when we follow God’s instructions. If we know that, why then do we sometimes fall into the trap of living lives as if we were left to navigate it on our own?
A recent experience shed some light on this question for me. Here goes…
Several months ago, I decided to learn to bake wheat bread from scratch. Despite having the recipe that told me exactly what I needed to do, all my attempts over the course of several weeks failed. I am not one to quit, so I decided to give it another try. I took a moment to read the instructions. Oddly, even though I had used the recipe before, some of the instructions seemed new to me. I immediately realized something. Each time that I got to a place in the recipe when I felt like I knew what to do, I no longer followed the instructions. How wrong I had been! This time, I resisted the urge to go my own way. I followed the recipe just as it was written. And it worked! This was a spiritual lesson for me.
The instructions for the recipe did not change. The items I needed for the recipe did not change. It was me who needed to change. I needed to accept that the person who wrote the recipe knew how to get to the end result. And if I wanted that particular end result, I needed to follow the recipe just as it was written. This is exactly how it is with God’s Word.
Psalm 119:105 (NKJV) states: Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
God’s Word is our guide. If we live lives in accordance with God’s Word, we will have the life God wants us to live. But if we live lives ignoring the wisdom and guidance God so freely offers to us, we delay or hinder efforts to get where God wants us to go. John 15:5 (NKJV) tells us in part: for without Me you can do nothing. This does not mean that on our own we cannot do good. Or that we cannot be successful. Not at all. The verse is telling us that with God’s help we get the results – the fruit – that God intended.
God’s plan has always been that we would live our lives victoriously in and through Christ Jesus. To get there, we have to follow – we have to obey – what God’s Word says we should do.
Psalm 32:8 (NKJV) states: I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.
Except where indicated, scripture references are from the American Standard Version (ASV), Darby Translation (DARBY), or King James Version (KJV) – all public domains.
