Secret Two: The Secret Of Fruitbearing Is Abiding
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The Secret of Fruitbearing is Abiding
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.
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you
(Jn. 15:4,7, NJKV)
At least twelve times in the New King James Version in John 15, Jesus uses the word abide. Why? Because abiding is the secret of fruitbearing. The branch does not bear fruit by struggling, but by abiding. If you were to walk through a vineyard, you would not detect tension and struggle among the branches. Instead, you would discover a calm, confident resting – an abiding – as the branches draw their life from the Vine.
In the Christian life, there is a difference between union and communion. When you trusted Christ to save you, the Holy Spirit united you to Him in a living relationship. You became a branch in the Vine; a living union was formed. But this once-for-all union is the basis for communion – maintaining a moment-by-moment fellowship with the Lord so that His life is shared with you. The branch that tries to go it alone will never bear fruit.
We must be careful to distinguish between His supernatural life and our own natural qualities. There are many people who by nature are quiet and unassuming, but this attitude is not necessarily Christian humility. Others are naturally optimistic and effervescent, but this may not be Christian joy. How can you tell the difference? In two ways. First, when our abiding in Christ produces true spiritual fruit, it is beyond anything that we can do and we know it. Second, because this is true, when there is spiritual fruit, God gets the glory. People recognize that it is God at work in our lives doing in and through us what we could never do for ourselves. Certainly the Holy Spirit can use personality traits, such as Peter’s courage or Paul’s self-control; but usually he has to help us overcome these traits when we depend on them and not on the Lord. Peter’s courage almost made him a murderer when he struck at Malchus with his sword.
How do we abide in Christ? Historically, two schools of thought have developed around the answer to that important question: the ‘quietists’ and the ‘activists’. The first group says, ‘You do nothing. You simply yield to Him and let Him have His way. Christ lives in you and He wants to use you the way the hand uses the glove. All the glove has to do is surrender.’ But the second group replies, ‘Not on your life! We are not dead gloves but living people. God never violates our personality and forces Himself on us. We must yield, but we must obey as well. We must actively read the Bible, pray, worship, and do all that He wants us to do.’
Actually, both answers contain a measure of truth. Surrender is important, and cooperation is also important. Abiding is not a passive thing, like a glove on a hand, because a glove does not have intellect, emotions, and will the way a person does. The glove can do nothing else but surrender! On the other hand, abiding is not such an active thing that we must manufacture the experience. Everybody has a ‘spiritual formula’ for you to follow: A + B + C = D. But formulas for the spiritual life are not always as neat and sure-fire as chemical formulas or cake recipes.
Paul gives us the best answer in Philippians 2:12–13 ‘… continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.’ God works in, we work out. As we surrender, God works in; as we obey, God works out. Abiding involves keeping in fellowship with the Vine so that God can work in us.
Certainly abiding involves spending time with the Lord in meditation and prayer. ‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you …’ (Jn. 15:7, NKJV). ‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love …’ (Jn. 15:10, NKJV). You cannot keep his commandments if you do not know them, and you cannot know them personally apart from His Word. ‘Blessed is the one … whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and who meditates on his law day and night’ (Ps. 1:1–2).
Prayer is also a part of abiding. ‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you’ (Jn. 15:7, NKJV). The better we know the Word of God, the better we can pray; for the Word of God reveals the will of God. ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us’ (1 Jn. 5:14). Of course, prayer is much more than asking. It also involves giving thanks, expressing love and worship, and also confessing sin.
Confession is a third factor in abiding. Sin always breaks our communion with God. ‘If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth’ (1 Jn. 1:6). It is important that we keep our hearts and minds clean and that we confess all known sin. David even asked to be cleansed from ‘hidden faults’ (Ps. 19:12)! There are sins that we commit that even we may not know about.
A fourth factor is a desire to do his will. ‘If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love’ (Jn. 15:10, NKJV). ‘I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart’ (Ps. 40:8). God’s will for our lives is that we bear fruit and glorify Him. His plan will be worked out in different ways with different people, and we must be willing for God to have His way. ‘[N]evertheless, not what I will, but what You will’ (Mk. 14:36).
It is the Holy Spirit who encourages and enables us to abide. He teaches us the Word; He enables us to pray; He reveals our sins; He gives us the inward desire to obey God. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God and prayer to strengthen our communion with Christ. This experience of abiding is not always accompanied by ‘spiritual feelings’ or unusual emotional changes. Then how can we know when we are truly abiding in Christ?
We never have to ask ‘Am I abiding in Christ?’ because there will be several evidences in our lives when we are in communion with the Lord.
The first evidence, and the most obvious, is fruit: ‘He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing’ (Jn. 15:5, NKJV). If we are maintaining a close fellowship with Him, then the result will be fruit in and through our lives. We will not need to manufacture ‘results’ in our own strength. The Holy Spirit will produce fruit, and this fruit will remain.
This means that God will use us to touch the lives of others and help win them to Christ. It may not be our privilege to actually lead them to the Saviour, but we will be a part of that miracle experience. My own conversion was the fruit of many different branches, a praying pastor, praying friends, faithful Sunday school teachers, a dedicated evangelist, to name but a few – and when I did trust the Lord, I was standing alone in the back of a high school auditorium listening to a man preach! For many years, that evangelist did not know that he had produced fruit in my life that night. In fact, he told me later that he had gone home from the meeting disappointed. God had given some fruit but he did not know it. You may have to wait until you see the Lord in glory before you will know what fruit has been produced in your life.
If you are growing in holy living, and experiencing victory over temptation, then you are abiding in Christ. The absence of temptation is not a proof of abiding; the presence of temptation and testing is the proof. Bearing ‘fruit to holiness’ (Rom. 6:22, NKJV) is a daily process, not a finished matter. As we grow in Christ, we conquer new areas in our lives; and the beautiful ‘fruit of the Spirit’ is more and more evident. If you find yourself growing in ‘love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’, then you know you are abiding in Christ.
You will also find yourself developing new values and wanting to invest what you have for God’s glory. Sharing what we have with others is ‘fruit’ (Rom.15:28, NKJV). Christians are not only forgiven, but they are also forgiving and for giving. ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35) is their philosophy of life. The Christian who is not abiding in Christ is selfish; he misses the joy of bearing and sharing.
As you abide in Christ, you will find many ways to work for Him. You will not have to be threatened or bribed: working for Christ will be the natural result of walking with Christ and abiding in Him. You will discover and develop your gifts and go to work in His church as He leads you.
You will find yourself praising the Lord as you abide in Him. You will praise Him for His blessings, and you will praise Him for the burdens of life as well. You will praise Him when the way is bright and clear, and you will praise Him when the way is dark and perplexing. The Christian who does not abide in Christ gives thanks occasionally for some things; but the abiding Christian gives thanks always for all things. Through Christ you will ‘continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise,’ (Heb. 13:15).
If we do not abide, we do not bear fruit; and if we do not bear fruit, the Father, who is the Vinedresser, must deal with us. ‘If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned’ (Jn. 15:6, NKJV). Some apply this warning to ‘professed’ Christians, people who are not truly saved and therefore cannot bear fruit. But how would a ‘professed’ Christian become a branch of the Vine? When Jesus said ‘You are the branches’ (Jn. 15:5), he was speaking to saved people who had been cleansed through faith in him (Jn. 15:3). Judas, the counterfeit believer, had already gone out (Jn. 13:21–30).
Is Jesus telling us that, if we do not bear fruit, we lose our salvation? I think not, and for several reasons. To begin with, the emphasis in this message about the vine and the branches is on service, not salvation. Jesus is not telling us how to get saved, or even how to get others saved, but how to live for Him now that we are saved. The emphasis is on communion, not union; it is on fellowship and discipleship, not sonship. He is addressing us as servants who are His friends (Jn. 15:15), and He is instructing us how to serve Him.
It is God the Father who ‘takes away’ the branch that does not bear fruit (Jn. 15:1–2). It is not God the Son who does it. God the Father has appointed His Son to be the judge. ‘Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,’ (Jn. 5:22). If the consigning of a fruitless branch to the fire meant a soul being sent to eternal judgment, then it would be done by the Son, not the Father.
What is the Father’s relationship to the branch? He is the Vinedresser. He seeks to make the branch more fruitful, even to the extent of pruning the branch and cutting away excess wood and leaves (Jn. 15:2). If the branch refuses to abide and bear fruit, then the Father can remove it to make way for a fruitful branch. This is known as spiritual discipline, or chastening. If the branch does not respond to the Father’s ministry, then the Father may have to take it away. Paul expressed the same thought in a different context – athletics. ‘Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training … I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize’ (1 Cor. 9:25–27). Is Paul suggesting that he was afraid he might go to hell? I think not. He was telling us of his fear of losing his ministry and losing his reward.
No matter how little fruit you may be producing, it is evidence that you are abiding in Christ. The Father sees that fruit and rejoices in it. He then does all He can to help you produce ‘more fruit … much fruit’ (Jn. 15:2, 5, NKJV). The last thing the Father wants to do is take away your opportunity for glorifying him in fruitbearing. But a fruitless branch is a disgrace to the Vinedresser! Certainly the fruitless believer ought to confess his sins and have his fellowship restored; then he can bear fruit for God’s glory.
A second evidence that you are abiding in Christ is the Father’s pruning. ‘[E]very branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful’ (Jn. 15:2). What is this pruning process? It is the Father cutting out of our lives the things that hinder us from being more fruitful. God also wants us to reach our greatest potential. This explains why abiding Christians are often suffering Christians. They experience the Father’s pruning, and it hurts.
What does the Father cut away from our lives? Anything that keeps the life of the Vine from producing more fruit, much fruit. If the life goes to leaf, He cuts away the excess leaves. Of themselves, leaves are not bad; but if they rob us of fruit, they are sinful. The abiding Christian is not constantly dealing with ‘bad things’; he is often dealing with ‘good things’. God told Abraham to leave his home and family, but Abraham took his father along. The father had to die before God could continue His work in Abraham’s life. But Abraham took his nephew Lot with him, and Lot also had to be cut away. Then it was his son Ishmael, whom he fathered through Hagar. And then it was his beloved son Isaac, who was given to him by the Lord. (Though God gave him back). Expect to be pruned if you abide in Christ.
Have you ever wondered why some believers seem to ‘sail through life’ in constant sunshine, while others experience suffering and loss? To be sure, God has different plans for each of his children; but this much is true: believers who abide in Christ can expect to suffer. The Father’s knife is ready to cut away anything in their lives that is keeping them from bearing more fruit for His glory. The Father may hurt you, but He will never harm you. His pruning is for your good and His glory, and that is all that really counts.
When you first start abiding in Christ, you find the sinful things of your life falling away as His life takes control. It is a thrilling thing to live in victory over the gross things of the flesh and the appetites of the world. But as your experience deepens, you start to experience the pruning process; and God starts to cut away things that you think are good. ‘Why, Lord?’ is the prayer often on your lips. And His answer is clear: ‘I want you to bear more fruit. The secret of living is fruitbearing, and the more fruit you bear, the more you will live.’ The abiding Christian does not choose between the good and the bad; an unsaved person can do that. The abiding Christian chooses between the better and the best. He is not discouraged when the Father prunes his life and cuts away something that he considers dear, because he knows he will receive something far more precious in return.
Expect to be pruned if you are abiding in Christ. This is the only way to bear more fruit and glorify the Father.
There is a third evidence of abiding; it is a growing sense of weakness. ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’ (Jn. 15:5). The Father often has to remind us that we are branches and not the Vine itself. He permits us to go through circumstances that bring out our weakness and His strength. He repeatedly teaches us, ‘apart from me, you can do nothing’ (Jn.15:5).
This is one reason for the testings that we experience in life. Have you ever noticed that God often tests his children in their strongest points? Satan tempts us in our weakest points to bring out the worst in us, but God tests us in our strongest points to bring out the best in us. If we fail in our strong points, think of how much greater we would fail in our weak points!
Abraham’s strongest point was his faith, and that is exactly where the Lord tested him. God permitted a famine to come to the land, and Abraham went down to Egypt to save himself. He failed the test. Moses’ strongest point was his meekness; yet he lost his temper one day and failed to glorify God. Peter’s greatest strength was his courage; yet he became a coward when confronted by a little maid who asked him about Jesus. Peter had boasted that he would even die with the Lord Jesus! He found out how weak he was and that, apart from Christ, he could do nothing.
After you have been abiding in Christ for a long time, you may be tempted to feel stronger than you really are. You may feel capable of handling life in your own wisdom and power. Beware! You are heading for certain failure and shame. Jesus said, ‘apart from me, you can do nothing’ (Jn. 15:5). Nothing. Of yourself, you are a weak branch, good for nothing but the fire. But in Christ you have all the strength you need to bear fruit and glorify God. Your weakness is your strength. God will see to it that you are reminded of your weakness, even if He has to bring you very low to do it. ‘Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me’ (2 Cor. 12:9).
If you are abiding in Christ, you will know it because He will answer your prayers. ‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you’ (Jn. 15:7, NKJV).
Prayer is not only a cause but also a result of abiding. As we pray, we abide; as we abide, we pray more, and more deeply. Prayer is not a ‘religious exercise’ that we perform out of obedience, as good as that might be. Prayer is the very breath and heartbeat of our lives. Prayer is part of a beautiful relationship between us and God: He speaks to us in His Word, and we speak to Him from our hearts. Prayer is not simply a servant showing up for orders from his master. Prayer is a friend sharing his heart with his Friend and growing in love and faith. Jesus does not call us slaves; He calls us friends. Because He is our Friend, we want to talk with Him and listen to Him talk with us.
You dare not separate prayer from the Word of God. ‘If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you …’ (Jn. 15:7, NKJV). As we read the Word of God, we discover God’s will, what He wants to give us. As we further meditate on His Word, our hearts are gradually changed, and we start to desire what He desires. ‘Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart’ (Ps. 37:4). Apart from the inner working of the Word in our hearts, we would never desire what He wants us to desire. Our desires would be selfish and sinful, and our prayers would be selfish and sinful. ‘When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures’ (Jas. 4:3).
Your Father wants to answer prayer. If you are abiding in Christ, and if His Word abides in you, then you will pray in His will and He will answer. ‘This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us’ (1 Jn. 5:14). It has well been said that prayer is not getting man’s will done in heaven, but getting God’s will done on earth. It is not overcoming God’s reluctance but laying hold of God’s willingness.
If you find your prayers becoming selfish, or if you find prayer becoming a deadening experience, a burden instead of a joy, then it may be that you are not abiding in Christ. If you pray but God does not answer, something may have happened to your communion with Him. ‘If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;’ (Ps. 66:18). Prayer is both a thermometer and a thermostat in the Christian life. It helps to regulate our ‘spiritual temperature’ but it also registers the devotion of our hearts.
What a joy it is to have God answer prayer! What confidence it gives you to know that you can take ‘everything to God in prayer’ and He will hear and answer! He does not always give us what we ask, but he does give us what we need, when we need it. This is one of the evidences of abiding.
A fifth evidence of abiding is love for Christ and His people. ‘As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love … This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you’ (Jn. 15:9, 12). God is love, and if we are sharing His life, we must experience His love. And if we experience that love, we must express that love to others.
There is a danger that our abiding life may become self-centred and isolated. We get so wrapped up in a relationship with God that we neglect or ignore the people around us. But this kind of ‘abiding’ is false. The closer we grow to the Lord, the more of His love we will want to share with others. Christian love is simply treating others the way God has treated us. Jesus commanded us to ‘love one another, just as I have loved you’ (Jn. 15:12). ‘Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another … We love because he first loved us’ (1 Jn. 4:11, 19).
You first experience this love when you trust Christ for salvation: ‘God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us’ (Rom. 5:5). As you abide in Christ, the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ begins to appear, and the first is love. This Christian love is not a sentimental feeling that comes and goes; no, it is a deep experience through the Spirit that does not fluctuate with changing feelings or circumstances. This love enables us to see Christ in others in spite of their faults and mistakes (1 Pet. 4:8: Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins’). There may be people we do not like because of their personalities, or with whom we disagree; but we will love them in Christ.
The test of this love is sacrifice. ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (Jn. 15:13). The kind of love our Lord is talking about – agape love – is love that gives, that sacrifices, that willingly pays the price that others might be helped. It should be no problem for us to lay down our lives for our friends when Christ laid down his life for his enemies!
This agape love shines out against the dark background of the world’s hatred for Christ and the Christian. ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you’ (Jn. 15:18–19). By ‘the world,’ of course Jesus means society apart from God, that system of values, philosophies, ideas, goals, and experiences that is wholly separated from God and is even anti-God. He is not speaking about the world of nature or the world of people, although the ‘world system’ can and does use people and things to promote its cause. The more you abide in Christ, the less you love the world system and the more you love Christ and His people. Conversely, the less you abide in Christ, the more the world will love you, and the less comfortable you will feel with the people of God.
Christians are the light of the world and the salt of the earth (Mt. 5:13–16). Our light shows up the world’s darkness; our purity shows up the world’s sin. The more we abide in Christ, the brighter the light shines and the purer our lives become, and the more the world hates us. ‘In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (2 Tim. 3:12). Were it not for the love of God’s people within the fellowship of the church, we would find it difficult to face the hatred of the world. It is sad when Christians fail to love one another, for that failure makes the church just like the world. If we find ourselves lacking in love for the brethren, it may be a sign we are not abiding in Christ as we should.
When the believer is abiding in Christ, he experiences an inner joy.‘I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete’ (Jn. 15:11). Christian joy is not the absence of trial or trouble; it is a deep peace and confidence in the midst of trial and trouble. The very hour in which Jesus spoke those words was one of tremendous pressure and challenge for Him. Judas would betray Him; Peter would deny Him; His own followers would forsake Him and flee. He would be arrested, falsely accused, humiliated, beaten, and then crucified. He would even be forsaken by His Father! Yet Jesus was able to give His joy to His disciples! It was a joy in the midst of sorrow, a confidence in the midst of man’s failure and sin.
The world offers entertainment, and even a bit of happiness; but only Christ can give joy; and this joy comes from our abiding in him. ‘You will fill me with joy in your presence’ (Ps. 16:11). ‘For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Rom. 14:17). This joy comes from Christ, not from ourselves or the circumstances around us. ‘Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation.’ (Ps. 35:9).
One of the first symptoms of backsliding – not abiding in Christ – is a loss of joy. When David sinned and tried to hide it from God, he ceased to sing and praise the Lord. ‘When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long’ (Ps. 32:3). When David finally confessed his sin, he prayed, ‘Restore to me the joy of your salvation’ (Ps. 51:12). Spiritual joy is the result of abiding in Christ; loss of that joy is an evidence that we are not abiding in Christ. The only way to restore that communion, and the resulting joy, is through confession. ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness’ (1 Jn. 1:9).
Here, then, are some of the evidences that we are abiding in Christ: We bear fruit for God’s glory. We experience the Father’s pruning that we might bear more fruit. We have a sense of weakness and know that we are only the branches; Christ is the Vine. We have our prayers answered. We love the brethren and are hated by the world. We experience a deep joy in spite of circumstances.
To be sure, not every abiding believer will have all of these blessings in the same degree at the same time. But they will be present in some measure, and they will be strong enough to be evident. Others may see these blessings in us better than we do!
It is good for us as branches to examine ourselves regularly to see if we are abiding in Christ. We want to bear fruit, and the secret of fruitbearing is abiding.