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John 15: 4 - "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me."

This verse is incredibly powerful and is very special to me. There are a lot of things said about Christianity, even within the church, that are misconceptions about what a Christian really is. A Christian isn't somebody who goes to church, who always wears a nice suit and tie, or someone who always tries to be a "goody-goody" (you know, like Ned Flanders on The Simpsons). Actually, a Christian is somebody whose life is like the situation described by John 15:4-Somebody who chooses to "remain in [Jesus]".

This verse says that if we remain in Him, He will remain in us. It's not enough for us to just say "okay, it's Sunday... I need to be good today because I'm a Christian." God is God every day, and we are His people every day, which is why Jesus tells us to REMAIN in Him. Not just "be with me on Sunday", but "remain in me". Jesus makes this point a couple other times in John's Gospel. After healing an invalid man by a pool, Jesus instructs the man to "stop sinning or something worse may happen to you" (John 5:14). Again, Jesus says a similar thing in John 8:11 after saving a woman from the hands of a mob that wanted to stone her to death, "Go now and leave you life of sin".

God doesn't just want a one time surrender to Him, but an on-going change of lifestyle, and I believe that John 15:4 beautifully describes this. In this verse, Jesus does more than just give us a command, but He explains WHY He wants us to remain in Him. He compares us to a branch which is connected to a vine. He points out that a vine cannot bear fruit unless it remains in the vine (ie: a branch is useless and dies without the vine), and so a true Christian should remain in Jesus so that we can bear spiritual fruits which enrich our lives and make it worth living.

Learn more about this author, Brad Norman.
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