Are You Connected?

John 15: 4-5
“Remain in me, as I also 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. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”

This has always been a passage that I appreciate. It reminds me that I need to stay connected to Jesus, and to be rooted in my faith. It reminds me that I am not the source and that it is Jesus in me that enables me to live and love as I should. It is not my strength, my will, or my dedication that enable me to “bear fruit”. It is my connection and relationship to Jesus that does. I draw strength, hope, joy, love from the true vine and as I take more and more of that into myself it begins to pour out of every aspect of my life.
There is one other aspect to this passage that I have overlooked in the past and that is that it is about US and not ME. All the “you’s” in this passage are plural. While this might not be a huge revelation to you, it is another reminder to me that I am not doing this alone. That Jesus calls us to do this together. We all grow together as we draw our lives upon Jesus. As Jesus works in each of us, he uses us to help encourage, mold and shape each other. It is a pretty unimpressive thing to see a plant where only one shoot or branch has sprouted, but to see a tree in full bloom is a thing of great beauty.
My hope in this:
1) You are able to remain strong in your connection to Jesus and experience a deepening of your relationship with him.
2) That you can have people whom you journey with as you grow and bear fruit together.