In John chapter 15, the gardener idea rises to the top. John quotes Jesus through the whole chapter. I wonder if the discourse on the vine was cut into his brain with a laser. It seems to flow without any thoughts about action or interruption.
The Father is the gardener. Jesus is the vine. What does that make me? A branch, the fruit bearing part, the leaves and stems that grow because it proceeds from the vine. It is nourished from the sap, from the root, through the moisture from the ground. Nutrients flow in the water from the soil to the root to the branches like God's love flows through Jesus and into me. I am the same kind of substance that Jesus is, and his love flows in me.
John even says that Jesus promised us the same quality of love and the same kind of results he saw in his own ministry. That seems beyond reach. How can I love like he loved? How can I heal like he healed? I see such a resistant world, so foreign to his call, so alienated from his methods, so deaf to his message that I cannot have faith. I am blocked by so much reality and science and sin that the vision lies unrealized. Verse 21 says that this is our mission because the world does not know Jesus. When we repeat and reveal and proclaim his words, his truth will grow in the world. The Advocate Jesus sent will empower even me to proclaim his words. I don't know that anybody even reads this, but it is my platform to proclaim the Gospel. I pray that somebody reads it.
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