The Fruit is Jesus by Bryan Craig

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.  John 15:7-11 ESV

It's Journey season!  Many Journey groups, including mine, sync up with the school year, so it’s an exciting time, with much anticipation about what God is going to do this next season.  I LOVE this part of The Journey as my Co-Guides and I are praying about who to invite and making our plans, but every time I do this, God surprises me.  There are people I thought, for sure, would join, but for various reasons, they don’t.  And then, there are some that were not even on the radar who show up!  I’ve learned enough to hold it all loosely and wait for God’s recruits.

But as we start a Journey group, we hand them The Journey to the Inner Chamber book which will whet their appetites and stir their spirits, but there comes a time when we must talk to them about “Abiding.”  As Rocky has said, the Journey to the Inner Chamber lays out a vision for abiding, but it’s a long, arduous process to get there.  Some may say that once you accept Christ and receive Him, you are abiding.  He may be abiding with us, but as Scripture lays out, abiding with Him requires a process of discipline, pruning, denying self, suffering, death.  In some ways, abiding separates the “believers in Jesus” from the “followers of Jesus.” 

It is always a bit challenging to explain abiding, especially to those who have never been discipled and have never spent much time in God’s Word, getting to know Him.  One way to try to explain is to start with the results of abiding…also called the Fruit in John 15.  Jesus says if we abide in Him, we will bear Fruit.  Many, including Influencers, draws a conclusion that this “Fruit” must be the “Fruit of the Spirit” as described by Paul in Galatians 5:22-23…Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control.  Simply put, these are characteristics of Jesus.

So, really, Abiding helps us look and act more like Jesus.  It’s true.  As we look more like Him, it has the same effect on the world that happened when Jesus was here…to some, we are attractional.  We radiate something that people are looking for, namely Love.  And yes, just like Jesus experienced, there are some who will hate us, for we are a conviction of their sin or a reminder of a life they do not possess. 

I just read Philippians 2 which talks about Jesus, and Paul is encouraging us to be like Him.  As I read Jesus’ attributes, once again, I saw the connection to our abiding with Him yielding this kind of Fruit:

• He did nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit.
• In humility, He counted others more significant than Himself.
• He looked not to His own interests, but to the interests of others.
• He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.
• He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to the point of death.

These kinds of things are counter-cultural, even counter-intuitive at times, yet if you are abiding with Christ, they resonate.  If we can go where Jesus wants to take us, we will be challenged immensely to let go of everything, all of our past, our pre-conceived ideas about what life should look like, our dreams, our identity, our desires, our hurts and wounds.  He asks us to Abide, which means Remain with Him, to walk so intimately and closely with Him that we find pleasure in being like Him, loving and serving others, being obedient to anything the Father wants from us.  He wants us to quit worrying about ourselves and to just enjoy being with Him.

I read a devotional during Sabbatical that challenged me.  It asked the question, “Am I living my life to glorify God or to glorify me?”  At first, I wanted to quickly answer, “To glorify God, of course!”  But then, the writer said, you can tell the answer by how you pray.  If you are coming to God with your long list of all the things you want Him to do for you, you are living your life to glorify yourself.  But if you are living your life to glorify God, you will be praying, “God, what can I do for you?”  It was convicting.

Philippians 2, verse 14-15 goes on to explain why Jesus wants us to be like Him.  Paul says that in this crooked and twisted generation, we are to “SHINE AS LIGHTS THE WORLD.” 

In John 15:7-11, which I quoted above, Jesus says to “Abide in His Love.”  He says if we keep His commandments, we will abide in His love.  My brain asks the question, “What commandments?”   Then, Jesus answers my question, in verse 12: “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Let me get this straight.  Abide so we can Love.  Love so we can Abide.  Hmmm?

So, as you talk to your potential Journey participants and they want to know what this is all about, you might say, “Jesus loves you SO much that He wants you take you through this process to show you His love.  If you give yourself to this process, you, too, will become an agent of His love and a light to this dark world.”  Who wouldn’t want to sign up for that?!