In John 15:16 the Lord told us that it wasn’t us who chose Him, but He chose us, and He set us to bear fruit – and that our fruit should remain! Our goal and our destiny, as branches in the vine, is to bear fruit!
All we need to do is to abide in Him, and He will actually bear fruit in us. No matter the circumstance or the environment we are in – they cannot be an excuse for our barrenness. The Lord set us for this – He destined us to bear fruit!
Therefore, if we are barren, if we didn’t bear fruit for a while, we need to consider this before the Lord and pray about it to Him, even be desperate that we would abide in Him and bear fruit in a normal way.
Going on from verse 16 to verse 17, we see that loving one another has a lot to do with bearing fruit. As the many branches who are abiding in the one vine, we need to love one another.
How do we love another & what does it really mean? Many times we love the ones we like, we love with our natural affection, and we love in our natural human life.
This kind of love is not real and leads not to life/building up, but to death. In our emotional way, for our own purposes, and with our own love – this is not how we should love one another.
We love one another by the divine life in us! The branches are one and love one another by the same life that they share! The Lord in us, the divine life in us, is the supply and the source of our love. The love that we can manifest from ourselves, unless it has the Lord as its source, is “stinky” and also lasts not for long.
But the divine life in us, the life of the vine, can love everyone! It is because we love one another not with our own love, but with the divine love! Because He loved us first, we love Him back with the love He poured out in our hearts through faith (Rom. 5:5)!
And this love increases in us, fills us, until we love one another and eventually love everyone! Loving one another is the church life, the Body life.
The divine life in us is the source of our love, love is our condition, and the goal is our fruit-bearing. The divine life in us is expressed in the love we show one another, which love is actually the divine love. And the purpose is that we may bear fruit!
This is our commission – to bear fruit for the glorification of the Father! If we live by the Lord’s life as the source, in the Lord’s love as the condition, and for the fruit-bearing as the goal, we surely will love one another(see note 1 in John 15:17)!
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