Recently at Valley View we've been looking at Spiritual Fruit and the idea that to produce Spiritual Fruit or have the right attitudes (that's what the fruit are), we must abide in Christ. I got this from the John text that says, Jesus is the vine, we are the branch, and God is the Gardener (John 15:1-17). I feel like most of us understand the vine and branch metaphor that Scripture uses to portray our relationship with Christ, but there's always difficulty in applying it. I think this is mainly because it's so easy to say we are attached to Christ, but in order for us to abide in Christ something crazy has to happen – we must get over ourselves. Paul says it a little more radically, in that we must die to ourselves (1 Corinthians 15:31).
The glue, if you will, that allows us to abide in or be grafted into the vine (Jesus), is dying to ourselves. The obvious problem with being living sacrifices is that because we are alive and kicking, we must be intentional not to crawl off the altar table. For example it will take some work for me if I am going to allow myself to die each morning. I mean, that's not a natural thing for us to be okay with! But the bottom line, is that for us to be grafted into and receive the abundant life that Jesus offers we must abide in Him - die to ourselves so we can be made alive in Him.
One of my favorite Scripture is John 12:23-25 which virtually says the same thing,
"The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
There’s so much good stuff here for us to talk about, but Jesus is basically telling His disciples that to live they need to die. I know this isn’t the most comfortable teaching because most of us aren’t in a big hurry to die. We may say we want to see Jesus, but when it all comes down to it, dying doesn’t seem like much fun. As odd as it is, some of my favorite OLD hymns have to do with dying. How many of you know the hymns "When the roll is called up yonder," or "When we all get to heaven?" I love those songs! They're fun to sing! But when the time comes to cross the great divide, even the most spiritual tend not to be too homesick. We’ve grown accustomed to this world! We’ve trained ourselves to defend our lives, our loved ones, and our possessions. In essence we’ve trained ourselves to survive.
And yet, Jesus tells us our very usefulness - our fruitfulness for God - is tied to our willingness to surrender our lives and die for Him. So here's my question, are you willing to die to yourself? What's holding you back? To be honest, I always want to, I just forget to. I guess I need to make it a greater priority... Do you?
