The Vine
In John 15:1-8, Jesus describes our relationship with him as being branches from the true vine: Jesus. And He also identifies God as the husbandman of the vine. God is the supreme commander, the chief control of the entire vineyard. As Christ made clear in the last chapter, His words and deeds were driven by what the Holy Spirit directed at the behest of God. Being under the direct influence and direction of God allowed Christ to establish a church that would last for millennia.
He made clear that God continually worked with the branches of the vine. Those that were productive, were adjusted as needed to bring forth even more fruit. Those that were not bearing fruit were discarded. Jesus further warned that there was no way for a branch to bear fruit for God unless it was attached to the vine who is Christ. Beware of religions that aren't Christ centered or that believe in the life of Christ as lived on earth, but reject the divinity of Christ before and after His time on earth. Christ wasn't an angel first that somehow got promoted as LDS believes. He wasn't just a prophet who lived and died as the Muslims believe. He was God and was instrumental in the creation of everything we see, both on earth and through our galaxy and beyond.
So what is the secret of bringing forth fruit that is acceptable to God? Jesus declared that we needed to abide in Him. So what does it mean to abide? Most of us have some place where we live. We may go out to work, shop, attend social events like church, or vacation. But we have one permanent residence where we abide. If you're very well off, maybe you have several such places, but I'd bet that even for the very wealthy, there is one spot that you tend to think of as home. I've never really understood the attraction of owning a number of homes. I suppose if much of my life had to be lived in a certain location for work, it would make sense to have a home or condo or apartment in the work location since renting a room by the day would seem like a waste of money, even if money was no real objects. But moving beyond two? That's a stretch. I feel the same way about vacation homes. Why would you want to tie yourself to one vacation spot, no matter how glamorous it was? Travel and see the world. But if you end up buying a cabin or beach front condo, then when you take a vacation, you will be tied there more often than not.
Where am I going with all this? We need to have one eternal residence and one true leader of our life. Christ needs to be that leader and we need to be looking heavenward at all times. When we let our eyes drift from heaven to other temptations of the world (the vacation homes in the example above), we stop bearing fruit for God. We may even step completely out of our salvation. Satan knows how to make the world look attractive, especially if we are not happy with where we are in Christ and our lives.
Christ's promise is that if we do abide in Him, then our lives will bring forth much fruit for the kingdom of God and God will be happy with us. Without Christ working in us, by guidance, by works, by words, we aren't going to do anything for the kingdom of God. And Satan has ways of attacking everyone. He knows what our weaknesses are. If you wonder about why these pages are infrequently posted, it's probably because I decided to watch some NetFlix series that I saw or one of my children recommended. Or something that I've bought on physical media - cause I'm old school. Or more likely, I've gotten interested in some book or series of books. And I'm an avid reader - around 185 books or so this year so far and around 275 last year. There could be a lot more pages on the website if I was in the vine more often.
What we don't want is to be cast out for not abiding in Christ. The allusion to what happens to branches that are unproductive and cut off in a vineyard - being burnt up as kindling - is similar to what happens when we reject Christ. Hell and the lake of fire awaits those who reject Christ, even if they were once in the vine. The promise of staying in the vine is real. Jesus declares that we can ask what we will if we are abiding in Christ and it will be done. Clearly,there are things we won't ask for if we are truly abiding in Christ. But as far as what will further the kingdom of God, I do believe that we can ask what we will, and God will provide in some way, as long as we aren't asking amiss.
And the last is a continual challenge. Would it be nice to win the lottery for several hundred million dollars? Maybe. But I'd want to be sure that God would keep my salvation secure through it if I prayed about it. It would be nice to not have to spend as many hours at work every day. I'd have a bit more time to read, or watch TV, or work on the website. But the downside is that there would have to be a lot of time spent managing the money or keeping track of what money managers you'd hired were doing with it or answering their calls and e-mails asking for direction. You'd trade one type of time sink for another. And although some worries would be eliminated as I'd hope anyone who won the lottery would get out of debt first, there would be other worries about your investments and charitable donations or the lives of your children and grandchildren, if any, that you would then have.
So as you read the scriptures suggesting you ask what you will, be careful of what you ask for - you might get it.
Commands to Love
In John 15:9-13, Christ goes on to encourage us to continue to love one another no matter what circumstances of life we go through. As God loved Christ because Christ did what God expected Him to do, so Christ loved His disciples. And He expected them to continue that love for each other and for new Christians, and for the world and enemies of Christ for that matter.
One indicator of the love the disciples had for Christ would be how well they kept his commandments. I suspect that like any other human, Christ knew that it was easier for the disciples to do what Christ told them to do when Christ was right there in their faces doing the ordering. To continue doing what Christ wanted them to do when led by the Holy Spirit (and the words Christ had said while on earth and the written word of the Old Testament that hadn't been done away with after Christ's death - the Jewish religious ordinances for example) would prove more challenging. And over the 2,000 years of history of the Christian faith, His admonitions have proven prescient.
If the church and all its leaders and members had continually followed the commands of God to the letter, I believe we'd still be one church in fact and not in principle. We wouldn't have fractured into major blocks of Christians - Catholic and Protestant, and each of those groups wouldn't have fractured further. The church is the way it is today because one or more groups or individuals didn't follow Christ's commands at some point, and caused a division. And there is no excuse for some of the garbage that has gone on and is going on in some parts of the church.
But for all the people turned off by the church, know that God hasn't changed, and He's probably just as unhappy with those who caused the problems and the things that you look down your noses at as you are, if not more. I personally wouldn't want to be the church leaders in charge when things got so bad that Martin Luther split away in 1517 AD, forming the beginning of all the Protestant denominations. It isn't for nothing that the first part of that organizational term is Protest. And although that is the fracture we most concern ourselves with today in America at least, there were many more.
The Eastern Orthodox church split off from the Roman Catholic church in 1054 AD. It was known as the Great Schism much like World War I was the Great War before we got smart and started numbering them. Going back further, the Oriental Orthodox churches had broken off at 451 AD after the Council of Chalcedon, the Arian Christians broke off around 325 AD after the Council of Nicea, and the Marcionite Christians broke off even earlier around 144 AD when Marcion was excommunicated. Assuming the leaders at those times made it to heaven, what would heaven be like for them, knowing they had directly or indirectly caused such division in the church? Some things are true. Some divisions have happened because the leadership of the church as a whole at that time (or the branch splitting) didn't believe the same things that the branching group did or there was corruption at the top that someone finally couldn't stand any more or there was corruption in the branch that left that and leaders finally had enough.
But in all that, there was one truth. God's truth. There's still just one truth. God's truth. It's the only one that will prevail. Every denomination or independent needs to seek to be closer to the vine's root and seek out and learn God's truth. It hasn't changed in all these thousands of years. And it isn't going to change. Each denomination needs to work to changing their denomination to match up with that truth.
There isn't a denomination out there that doesn't have some change that they could make somewhere to be more in line with God's truth either in what the believe or in how their denomination works. Even in my denomination, we are a group of independently founded churches which may adhere to a common set of principles, but are still largely locally owned as it were. Is that right or should we all be more fundamentally interconnected like the Catholic church? Everyone has something they should think about in this area. And as a Pentecostal denomination, our branch was one of the last that's been formed from the 1906 Asuza Street revival splitting in large part from the Holiness movement which split from the Methodists. It should be noted that there are many independent churches that have sprung up as well.
I am sure of one thing. We would be stronger as a united body than separate. I think that the Pentecostal group, especially with adding in the evangelical independent churches, are the second largest block of Christians, and currently the fastest growing. But that doesn't change the reality that we need to keep listening to God's commands. When human will takes over, the church gets a black eye, and more people are given a reason to turn away from God. Satan can point to all the denominations and say how do you choose the right one? It's better to just stay home.
Here's my challenge to each town or city around the world today. Make up a Christian church web directory and let each church present a brief blurb giving the basics. First, get together and decide what all of you believe in common. It should be a lot. Put that information at the top of the page, emphasizing what you all hold true together. Then let each church have a small paragraph telling what is different about their denomination and service format. They can provide a link to their own web presence for more information, but make a common directory so that people can see just how much overlap there is in Christianity. We're all supposed to be His church, anyway. I'd say make it a Wikipedia page, but the cross edits wouldn't be very good. At any rate, the exercise would do you good in seeing just how much you are supposed to have in common. And if you can't get along enough to build such a page, then maybe you have a lot more work to do in following God's commands to love in the first place.
Truly, we are to love one another, just like Christ loved us. We are called to lay down our lives for our friends as the greatest measure of our love. How fitting it would be to lay aside the divisions of churches in each town and work together. There will always be people drawn to each denomination, whether by style of service, preaching, music, or some other criteria. There are enough unsaved to go around. Work with each other! And follow God's direction!
Friendship with God and Its Cost
Christ goes further in John 15:14-21, to call those who do what He commands, friends. Servants do what they do because they are owned and forced to do so. In the Roman culture, the owner of a servant could do literally anything they wanted to that servant for any reason. There was a strict isolation between them, for the most part, and the servants acted only when the master directed. They didn't need to know why.
Christ says that it is important that they have a deeper relationship than just that of a servant. That isn't to say Christ doesn't expect us to carry out what He commands us to do. But he wants the relationship to be one of friendship. If a random person you don' t have a relationship with (either work, government, military or some other) orders you to do something, it is unlikely you will do what was asked. If a friend asks you to do something, it is likely that you will try to do what was asked because you know that friend will also try to help you if you need help. If it's something you really don't want to do, you'll listen to the reasons why it is important to the friend, and are likely to change your heart and comply.
In a like manner, in the family of God each of the people Christ was speaking to was chosen and ordained by Him in order to do good works and produce fruit for the kingdom. Along with God's plan for the spread of the church, Christ said that if they asked something in Jesus name of God, might be given to them by God for His work.
He warned the disciples that it was his command that they love each other. That word love covers a great many expectations. How much more would we do for someone we loved than for a random person we don't know. Jesus' expectations for us are high. But at the same time, He was pushing us to love because He knew that there would be huge levels of hate poured their way, just as it had been and was about to be poured out on Him. Choosing to follow God has a price. The world (those outside the church) have their own way of living that isn't centered on Christ. They accept each other and love each other because they are similar. They don't love Christians because we are at least supposed to be different and live different lives then them. The more different we are and the more different from the world that we try to live, the more that indifference and ignoring of our lives turns to outright hate. And it should be expected because the world (championed by Satan) persecuted and ultimately crucified Jesus.
If we aren't feeling persecuted, then maybe we need to reexamine our lives in Christ. Do we look too much like the world? And that persecution isn't necessarily limited to the world. I talked a bit above about all the splits in the church over history. There have been many. But even within a denomination, there is persecution. Take a position about society that you think lines up with what the Bible actually says and follows the heart of Christ, but isn't what your denomination believes... there will be persecution. Take a political position opposing someone who you don't think is a Christian in any way, shape, or form, and does and promotes things that aren't Christian ways of doing things or are outright sin, and you'll get persecution. Believe something that isn't what someone was taught from a simplified Bible story? You'll be persecuted.
Accept it and move on. Just stay close to the vine at all times. Realize that the world's persecution is coming because the world hates both Christ and God.
Knowledge and Sin
Finally, in John 15:22-27, Christ discusses the consequences of knowing the will of God and the plan of God and rejecting it. Those who have heard God's word, read God's word and seen God working have no excuses when they reject God and the salvation Christ offers. If you aren't right with God, you need to get right with Him. You've read that you need to. Right now you must make the choice. You can ignore the prompting of the Holy Spirit or give in and accept God's salvation. But you know what you need to do, and as of this moment, you have no excuse before God by saying no.
Those who have not heard the Gospel message, will be judged based on what they know. Romans 2:11-16 talks about this as well. But really, in our culture today, there are probably very few who haven't heard about God and Christ at some point in their lives. It used to be, back when there were just a few TV networks, that the majority of the TV watching population heard about Jesus, if nowhere else, from Linus on the Peanuts Christmas special. But even without that, people walk or drive by churches all the time. They are in the news. There is no excuse for our generation. Even for churches that nobody attends anymore that are being converted to something else, you are exposed to the fact that it was a church. If you ignore what that means and don't look further, you still have knowledge that you will be judged on.
Finally, and most importantly, the group from Romans above and you have the Holy Spirit which has been moving in peoples lives since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit if not before. Why do you think they were ashamed of their nakedness? The Holy Spirit was convicting their heart that they had failed God. The Holy Spirit has been convicting of sin throughout all time. He's been trying to draw people from sin to truth as long as there has been a loss of grace. He is that conscience bearing witness in the hearts of those who haven't heard about Christ that Paul speaks of. Nobody will stand at the Great White Throne judgment with any valid excuses, because at least at some point in each person's life, the Holy Spirit was working telling them to change course for God. Maybe they finally didn't listen long enough that they Spirit left. But at one point, they were all being directed by the Holy Spirit as to what was right and wrong, regardless of their environment or upbringing.
The Holy Spirit came in a more immersive way in Acts 2. This was prophesied by Christ here. As the disciples obeyed the direction of God and Christ, the Holy Spirit would testify through them of all Christ had done, and He expected each of the disciples present to also testify of the things that they had witnessed and heard. We are likewise called to tell all the world about what we have experienced in our life's walk with Christ. We all are called to go into all the world... The good thing is that with the internet, Facebook, Twitter or X as Musk prefers, it is easier than ever to go into all the world. Keep His work alive.