John 15

Every day I have a prayer sent to me by email. The prayers are always inspired by a passage in the bible. Today it was John 15:5

::::"I am the vine, and you are the branches. If you stay joined to me, and I stay joined to you, then you will produce lots of fruit. But you cannot do anything without me". ::::::

I like this sentence so much that I decided to read the whole passage once again.

Jesus is talking to His disciples, telling them that He is like a vine in His Father's garden.

:::::"If you don't stay joined to me, you will be thrown away (like the dead leaves and branches of a vine).

Stay joined to me and let my teachings become part of you. Then you can pray for whatever you want, and your prayer will be answered". :::::::

This is tricky, because at first sight it looks like every little wish will be answered. When I thought about this sentence, I realized that this is mostly not happening. But then I also realized the true concept of this sentence.

"let my teaching become part of you".

If His teaching is really part of me, then I don't have any selfish little wishes to pray for anymore. My only wish will be to honour and obey the Father and to love Him and His children.

Jesus tells His disciples:

:::::"You did not choose me. I chose you and sent you out to produce fruit, the kind of fruit that will last. Then my Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name".::::::::

My dad used to say when I was a child: "Always pray in Jesus' name, when you pray to God. Always end your prayer with 'in the name of Jesus, do what You what you want, my Lord'". It's just now that I really understand this. He is our Saviour and Leader, when we come from Him, it's good.

Jesus goes on:

::::::”So I command you to love each other. If the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to the world, its people would love you. But you don't belong to the world. I have chosen you to leave the world behind, and that is why its people hate you”.:::::

It's wonderful to read these words, how much Jesus loves us, how much he wants our love. And how much he wants to protect us from the evil of this world if we love him.

Jesus:

::::::"Remember how I told you that servants are not greater than their master. So if people mistreat me, they will mistreat you. If they do what I say, they will do what you say. People will do to you exactly what they did to me. They will do it because you belong to me, and they don't know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin".:::::

I think this is very important, because how often do we say, we humans don't know, we're weak creatures always tempted to do it our own way. But Jesus teaches us that there are no excuses, that we just have to live by His words. What we do to others we also do to Him.

In that same view it's also understandable when he says, "Everyone who hates me, also hates my Father". If the people of this world hate us for following Jesus, yes, then that same people will also hate Jesus for following His Father.

And then again, Jesus explains, how He has shown and proved to these people that He is God's son and still they hated Him, while they had no reason.

At the end of the teaching He promises the disciples that He will send the Spirit to help them, so they can tell others about Him.

This whole John 15 passage is bringing beautiful comforting words for everyone who needs reassuring of God's love for us, who are suffering from misunderstanding by the evil people of this world.

Our great Father will never leave us alone or brush us away, insult us or demean us. He loves us as His children, He wants to talk with us as friends and wants us to talk about His love with others, so they will know it too. And if the teaching of this Great Father has become part of us we will love others like we love ourselves.

I hope you will have a blessed Sunday. Anneke