21: Bible Study With Mari - John 15

I don't know if you can hear it if you're just listening, but if you are watching, you can see the beautiful Caribbean sea behind me. I am actually on vacation in Turks and Caicos. And I am recording here in the morning, just out on the patio. With the warm breeze, the sun is rising. I mean, it's already in the air, but it's like 7 a. m. And it's, it's got that like golden morning light coming through. And the ocean is just so beautiful.

I am just in awe, continually just in awe of God's creation as I'm here. And I think being at the beach, but I think specifically just like gorgeous tropical beaches has just allowed me to see God's. Uh, artistry in a new way. I think there's so much creativity that the Lord has that is shown to us through the sand and the ocean and the sceneries, the multitude of sceneries that can be found near. The water in like near a beach, it can have so many different, uh, looks to it.

And right now I, the house that we're on is on like a rocky kind of, it's not really a big cliff, but it's kind of like a rocky hill with a bunch of like, jungle y greenery around it, like super tropical plants, super bright green, and then it just drops into the teal, teal, clear waters of the ocean and perfectly, perfectly white sands. So, Anyways, I'm here right now. Today's podcast is going to be a little bit different. I'm excited. We're going to pray together.

I'm going to be doing a little Bible study, a little scripture study, um, on John 15, the vine and the branches. Now, if you know the Bible, well, you've probably read this, but don't. Don't go rolling your eyes and being like, Oh my gosh, I've already read this. I'm going to skip this. Don't skip it. The Word of God is alive, and if you have read the Bible already, or if you've read this chapter already, promise you the Lord has something new for you today.

And if you haven't read much of the Bible or much of the gospels, or maybe you just haven't read this specific gospel, then I'm so excited for you to hear this right now for the first time. I would say it's a fundamental passage that it says a lot, um, shows us a lot about God, how he interacts with us, um, what he desires for us in our life and shows us a little bit of our world.

Into, I think the genius behind his plan, and I say that lightly because we could never know the full genius behind what God does, why he does what he does, why he allows certain things in our life. Um, but I know that we're all often looking for answers like that. We're all often trying to figure out, God, what are you doing in my life? What is the purpose? Why are we doing this? Um, and I feel like this. passage just kind of like pulls back the curtain a little bit. Um, and the Lord willed it.

I mean, the, the, the word of God is inspired or word of God. And if it's in this book, he desired for us to know it. And so I think it will bring, it can bring a lot of us comfort, um, as well as a little bit of tough love, which The father is known to do sometimes and I think it's a good thing because any good father that loves his children Has to give tough love at some point.

So let's just start out in a prayer and see what the Lord has for us today In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come Holy Spirit come be present in this room right now Um, be present in the heart of all of our listeners. I thank you Lord for the gift of this daughter or son of yours that is tuning in and desiring to hear your word and to grow in their faith in some way today.

Um, please bless these desires that we have to grow closer to you, to know you more, to love you better, just to open ourselves, open our hearts, our lives, our minds, to welcome you in deeper, to let you in, um, in a more profound way, in a more transformative way in our lives, Lord, so much so that it would change who we are. I in the word, uh, we know that your word is your inspired word, your living word, and there's always something that you want to share with us today.

Um, there's always something that you want us to hear, uh, some way that you want to speak into our lives. So I just pray that you just make this word living into our lives, that you make this word incarnate, um, that we would truly hear your voice and. Allow this word today to transform us today to really resonate in our hearts and have it be something that we can take with us and ponder it throughout our day. Yes, it's all in your most holy name. Amen. Okay. I'm going to get comfy here.

First of all, I'm going to put all these prayer cards away because they keep floating away in the wind. I got my water bottle so I can stay hydrated. Okay. So I'm going to do what the church likes to call Lectio Divina, which is basically a form of Praying with scripture and approaching scripture, and it means you read it several times.

You maybe use your senses, your imagination to kind of engage the scripture and maybe put yourself in the scene or really just like attentively listen to each word and see if a certain word or phrase lingers on your heart or resonates with you. Then we just kind of go into like a more, more reflective period of the prayer where we kind of take those things apart and Usually if you're praying with someone either a friend or a family member or a group It would be a space for everybody to share.

Right now It's just you and me and while you can hear me, I can't hear you So you're just gonna get my reflection today But if there's anything that resonates with you from today's prayer and scripture study, please send me a DM You don't know how You Amazing it is how much I love seeing your DMs when you listen to a podcast and come back and share with me what you thought from it, what you got from it, how you were encouraged, um, how you're taking it from just, you know, It's what you're

hearing on in your AirPods or in your car to like real life. So if you feel like something resonates with you or something stood out to you or you have a question or you just loved this kind of podcast today of just like praying together through scripture, please drop it in my DMs and let me know. Okay, let's dive in. I'm going to, I'm going to read it. So this is John chapter 15 verse 1. And I think we're going to go chapter 15 verses 1 through 11 in the book of John. The vine and the branches.

I am the true vine and my father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit.

Because without me, you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither. People will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. Okay, so that time we read it kind of just to get an overview, just to understand what the passage is about, what. The Lord is saying, like, what are we actually getting in here today? This time I'm going to read it again.

If you are in a space where you can just like put down what you're doing, it's just sit down for a few minutes while we do this together, I encourage you to do so. If you can like close your eyes and enter into the scene, this time, um, put yourself in the scene where. Jesus is saying this to his disciples, or he's saying this to you. Uh, I would love it if you could do that. Um, if you can't do that right now, if you're driving, please don't close your eyes.

If you're doing something else, um, and you can't really step away from it. No worries. Just allow these words from. You know, scripture to sink in and to feed your soul, to feed you in the way that you need to today and just allow it to kind of resonate with you throughout the day and try and come back to it. Come try and like pray with it throughout the day. If you can, if you don't have space right now to really sit down, close your eyes and let this, um, really sink in right now.

So. I'm going to read it again. Like I said, if you're in a place where you can just like put down what you're doing, close your eyes, enter into the scene and engage your imagination. Um, and it's going to be different for everybody, but just, um, Um, just engage your imagination and put yourself in the scene. Where are you? Where is Jesus? Where is he speaking? How is he speaking? Um, and what from what he's saying is lingering. I want you to notice this.

What words from this passage do you feel like really resonate with you? Do you feel like your soul just kind of like pauses on? So just take note of that. I'll read it again. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me as I remain in you.

Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. Because without me, You can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither. People will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned.

If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in His love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete.

I love this passage because I feel like it just reveals our great need for the Lord. This deep need that we have as human beings, as his sons and daughters, uh, for our God, for For us to be in union with him, for us to, like he says, remain in him. I know that some, um, versions of the Bible, some translation also use the word abide for us to abide in him. And that's a very unique and specific word that I feel like we don't necessarily use in like a day to day. We don't.

We don't say like, Oh my gosh, I want you to abide in me. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like part of our common language. And so I think it holds a special weight to it. Like, what does it mean to abide with God, to abide in God?

And this passage kind of just reveals The truth of that, I mean, it says just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own, unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me, whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit because without me, you can do nothing. Oh gosh. I mean, as somebody who like prides themselves sometimes on like how much they can get done in.

Um, how good they are multitasking and handling a lot on their plate and, you know, achieving a lot of things. I don't know if this is you, if you can relate to this, but I feel like our culture is so obsessed with our to do list, with productivity, with filling our plate, with kind of out doing each other on how much we have going on. Um, this can be kind of hard to read. It can be kind of hard to read. Jesus's words that say, without me, you can do nothing.

Imagine just like knowing you are powerless, knowing any of your efforts are a waste and mean nothing. Um, if not without the Lord, that can be kind of a hard truth and a hard pill to swallow. Because if I'm being honest with myself, There are absolutely times where I feel like I am trying to do the work myself, and I'm not actually welcoming Jesus into it. I'm not actually actively inviting Jesus into it. So therefore it's, it's kind of like wasted effort.

So I think that's the first takeaway that we need to take from this passage is just that baseline understanding of like, we are human. And we have a great need for the Lord. We are mind, body, and soul, and our soul is a very active part of who we are. I think we forget that sometimes. I think that because our soul is this hidden piece of us that we can't physically see, and a lot of us maybe not be in tune with it.

We kind of can easily just Push it to the side and feel like it's not there or like the things that we do or don't do don't actually affect it or don't play into Just our spiritual life But I want us to keep that at the forefront and just realize like we're a body, mind and soul Everything that we do in our life informs and Each one of those components and the Lord wants to be present in all of it.

He wants to be present, not just in your prayer, but he wants to be present in what you physically do in your life, in your thoughts and your hopes and your dreams, um, in your conversations and your work and in all that you do and. And let's just remember like in everything that we do, let's invite the Lord into it. Let's not try and do it ourselves. Let's be that fruit on the branch because we know if a fruit falls off the branch before it's ripe, right? It dies.

Um, so let's be that fruit on the branch. Let's gain our strength, our nutrients, our knowledge, our courage, our patience, whatever it is, you're trying to grow in right now or need more of in your life. Draw it from the source of life, draw it from your branch, right? That gives you everything you need to grow and bear fruit. Don't try and do it alone. Next thing I want to look at, that always stands out to me, is verse 2.

He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and every one that does, he prunes, so that it bears more fruit. Honestly, I feel like this passage, like, seems nice when you read it the first time, and then when you really dive into it, you're like, Ah, this is hard. Verse 2 literally says, like, the Father, right? Like, in His love, in His goodness, He takes away certain branches.

He cuts them off if they're dead, if they're not bearing fruit, maybe if they're poisoned, if there's an illness that's creeping up on the plant. Like, he does not hesitate in cutting branches off that are not bearing fruit. And then, he goes even further than that, and then, even the ones that do bear fruit, he prunes so that it bears more fruit. Now, I'm no gardener. Okay. As much as I'd love to be, I am not yet.

Maybe one day, but I know that pruning means that you are Like cutting off certain leaves or certain flowers or kind of like trimming the plant, even though it is already bearing fruit, even though it is growing tall and strong, like you are cutting parts of the plant off. You're trimming it in order for it to thrive more. And okay, you guys I have Google pulled up on my phone right now and I looked up why does pruning help plants grow more and First article that comes up is from fine gardening.

com Pretty credible source in my opinion.

I don't know a lot about gardening, but looks like this site does and it's called the science of pruning and it says The result of pruning is more vigorous spring growth from those remaining Growing points, so I think this is talking about like pruning specifically in the winter But it's saying like think of pruning like holding your thumb over the end of a garden hose With the same amount of pressure, but a reduced opening you get a much more forceful spray And then the next article says by

removing the apex, which I think is like, kind of like the top part. Um, pruning temporarily destroys apical dominance and stimulates the growth of lateral buds into shoots. I'm going to translate this in my very layman terms words. Um, but it sounds like by pruning the top, you're almost telling the plant to like produce more to fill that gap. Um, you're encouraging more growth. And the Lord does this very thing in our lives too.

The Lord sometimes needs to trim certain parts of our lives that may not necessarily be helping us bear fruit. And then even the ways that we are, he might be trimming them to be even better. Right? You might be trimming parts of us that is growing, that is trying, that is doing well to encourage even further growth in whatever it is that we are trying to strive for, to grow in. And I think that we can just relate this back to sin.

We know that sin, um, It's a darkness in our lives that pulls us away from the Lord. And sometimes certain sins can really take root in our lives, right? You can almost look at it as like a weed that's growing in the garden that can slowly take over if you don't pull it up from its root, if you don't. Try and remove it. It spreads and it grows stronger the longer you let it go on. I think the same goes for sin. And sometimes the Lord snips these things away. Often times he does.

And so this can look differently in your life if there's maybe Something as, you know, severe as like a vice that you have or something that's continually drawing you into mortal sin like, uh, drunkenness or premarital sex or, some sort of addiction be Something that is more subtle that maybe you don't notice right away, but maybe a bad relationship, a bad friendship that's leading you away from God. Maybe it's a career path that's actually making you put.

Other things above the Lord are making you change your morals or change your values. Maybe it's something even smaller that you might have not noticed before, but it's a show that you're watching that's actually making you act differently or maybe you don't even realize it, but it's kind of making you think of the world in a different way, think of relationships in a different way, think of yourself in a way that's not Christ like or making you desire things that are not Christ like.

These are branches that the Father will slowly try and strip away. Why? Because this is just the process of sanctification. This is just journey that we are on as human beings, quite literally, just like this is the journey that we're on on earth to be sanctified, to be stripped of sin so that we can one day come face to face with the Lord and say, I am completely yours. There's nothing in this world that has hold over me. There is nothing that I am attached to that I desire more than you.

My greatest desire and my entire heart belongs to you. And my greatest desire is to be with you for eternity. And while we may say that out loud, there are things, there are layers in our heart that can pull us away from that ultimate desire of heaven. And that ultimate commitment to live a Christ centered life, to live a life that is completely oriented towards God, where you put him as a priority above anything else in your life.

So then the second part of this line and everyone that does, he prunes so that it bears more fruit. This one's tough, I feel like, um, again, because we might continually experience like, okay, Lord, I know this is a lesson you're trying to teach me and you're going through it and you are sticking through with him. And then it comes up again a few years later, like, The same struggle, the same thing the Lord's trying to teach you. And you're like, Lord, I thought we already learned this.

Like, I thought we already went through this together. I thought I already overcame this sin, or I thought I already learned this new virtue. And like I said, the process of life, just like the journey of life that we're on is continual, pruning, continual sanctification, continual stripping away of what we know the world to be, and continuing orienting our hearts and minds and soul towards God. And so, for me personally, I'll just give an example. Um, I just think of surrender.

I just feel like there's been several times in my life, even though I haven't experienced great, great, great suffering throughout my life, I would say just like the cross that my husband and I are going through right now of infertility is biggest suffering that I have experienced and no, there is no question that it requires so much surrender. I look back into my life and I see all the little ways God asked me to surrender and sort of taught me what surrender looks like.

What letting go and letting God really really looked like that led me to this moment and Not that's not to say that I'm like living this out perfectly right now But I know that once we started going through this struggle, I kind of looked up at the Lord and I was like Really? We're going to do this again? Like, I thought I already learned surrender. I thought I already learned like how it goes. And I even remember a few months in, even a year in, I was like, okay, I know how to play this game.

Like I've done it before. It looks like me just going to the chapel, opening my hands and being like, okay, Lord, I surrender, do what you will, your will may be done. I will do whatever you ask. And at first that was easy to say, but it was easy to say because it wasn't actually the way my heart felt. Actually mean those words when I said it, I was just kind of trying to play the game.

And I think this is an example of the Lord pruning even what does bear fruit so that there can be further growth, deeper faith, more trust. Um, I know how to surrender. I've experienced surrender in my life time and time again, in small ways and bigger ways. And yet we're at a crossroads once more, where in a very big way, the Lord is asking, will you trust me? Will you surrender your will? Maybe you can relate to your life in this way.

Maybe it's not the same kind of struggle, but lot of people's experience like, Lord, I do not know what you're doing here. I do not know why you chose me to suffer in this way. I do not know how it plays into your big plan, your overall picture of my life. But within that, the Lord asks for our trust and our surrender, no matter what, no matter how big, no matter how small.

And that's pruning this continual journey of surrender that I feel like I've been on each time is honestly deeper and deeper. And I'd be lying if I said there wasn't growth coming from it because there is. That's where what we just read on Google that when you trim parts of the plant it Spurs deeper growth it spurs more Growth within the plant because it's trying to shoot up.

It's trying to fill that gap It's trying to replace what was once there, but with the Lord, we hope to replace it with something better, right? so don't be surprised when The Lord continues to trim your leaves when the Lord continues to chisel away at you, to perfect you, to make you more holy, because that's just the life that we're on. And truly you can look at it in a way that is negative, and you can look at it in a way that is hard, and it is hard.

But it is also such a beautiful journey, such a purifying and honestly can be joyful. It can be a joyful journey. And I say this from firsthand experience of what we're going through right now for some reason, right? Because of God's perfect plan and the way that he has orchestrated who we are as human beings, body, mind, soul, and relationship with him. This pruning that I have experienced the past few years has brought joy in the most unexpected ways. Why is that?

Because through this experience, I have grown, I have grown in deep intimacy with the Lord. I know the Lord in a new way that I didn't know before. I know his heart in a deeper way that I didn't know before. I feel like in my inability to understand God's reasoning through things. I have sort of come to a place of peace and understanding of his heart of his desire to do everything for love for us to bring us closer to him, which is the ultimate goal that we have here on earth.

And I wouldn't have come to these places, I wouldn't have found this depth and this joy in my relationship with God if it wasn't for this pruning that I've been going through. So I just challenge you to view whatever season of pruning you may be in, or you might experience or might've experienced in the past with fresh eyes, with new eyes and recognizing that it comes from a place of love from the Lord.

Okay, and the last thing that I feel like I want to touch on it kind of circles back to our first point of Remain in the Lord, allow him to remain in you without him. We can do nothing. I want to talk about like, what does it actually practically look like to remain in the Lord, to abide in the Lord, to. Live so closely intertwined to the branch that you can bear fruit constantly and that your whole life is oriented towards the branch, towards the Lord, towards the source of life.

And truly where I feel like this comes down to is prayer. Prayer is a gift that we are given. To be in relationship with the Lord, to be in a deep personal relationship with the Lord, besides the sacraments, which have a supernatural grace that brings us closer to God and sanctifies us. Besides that prayer is truly the only way that we have.

To come to know and speak to the Lord and be in deep relationship with him So let's use it right like if this is the main avenue that the Lord has given us To be in relationship with him to be in communion with him. We need to be drawing from that every single day. We need recognizing that to abide in him, we need to literally abide in his word. We need to let our soul rest in his. We need to be constantly drawing from him, from his. love from his grace, from his mercy.

And so this looks like daily prayer, you guys, to abide in him, to remain in him, um, to experience what he says in verse 11. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. We only experience that when we are in perfect communion with the Lord. And I say perfect loosely, I don't say perfect as in like, you are sinless, you are blameless. Um, you never, you know, stray away.

That's, that's not realistic for our humanity because we are human and the Lord knows that. And he doesn't expect that. I mean, perfect in. A perfect will to be in the Lord, a perfect striving to be with him. It really comes down to striving. Are we striving to spend time with him? Are we striving to put him above our phones, above our work, above our boyfriend or girlfriend or family, even, or spouse, like that? Can he be number one in our lives? And what does that look like?

Can we go to him and just bear our hearts to him and invite him to bear everything with us that we're going through and invite him to have a say in the decisions that we're making in our life. Um, maybe just to really even just grow in friendship and come to know, like, Jesus, what is your heart? Like, who are you? Who are you? Who are you in my life? Who do you want to be in my life? The more that we. Seek him out and go to him daily, the more you're going to feel.

His presence in your life, the more you're going to acknowledge his work in your heart and the more your eyes are going to be open to the way that the Lord is working in your life. I think that's a misconception a lot of us have of like, Oh, well, like God just doesn't really work in my life the way he does and other people are like, I don't really like see these like God winks or like God coincidences. These are just different terms people use, um, to describe how God is working in their life.

And some people might just be like, well, those things just don't really happen to me. I would argue. That if you are not in prayer with the Lord, if you are not seeking a relationship with him through prayer every day, yeah, it's really hard to see the way he's working in your life because. You don't know him well enough to recognize how he works in your life, and it's going to look different in different people's lives.

The way that he works in your friend's life might not be the way that he works in yours. And until you get to know him and how he wants to reveal himself in your heart and in your life, you won't see it outwardly. So prayer, you guys, I think this goes back to prayer time and time again. Um and doing so will Allow you to bear much fruit because we can't continue union with him in communion with the Lord and not bear fruit That's just impossible.

Like once you experience what the effects of being united to Christ in your life, the effects of trying to orient every part of your life towards Christ and starting your day with prayer and rooting your life in prayer in God and relationship with God. You can't not bear fruit when you do that, because the Lord himself is fruitful. The Lord himself is abundant and is an overflowing spring of life and love and grace. And it pours forth into those who seek it.

It pours forth into those who are drawing from him as the source of life. I hope that this was encouraging to you guys. I hope that this was a nice break in your day to actually spend some time in prayer and in the word. And I hope that you can take what you heard today. Into your life into your day throughout the day and just let it resonate with you and kind of continue to chew on How am I abiding with the Lord?

How am I trying to do things with him or maybe without him in what ways is the Lord asking me to? Further be pruned or to cut off certain branches in my life that are not bringing me good that are not bringing me fruit Take these and Reflections and questions into prayer, into your life. And just allow the Lord to speak into it. Just notice the way that he is working in your heart. Notice the way that your heart feels after this time of prayer together. Um, and just invite him to continue to.

Reveal himself to you to continue to reveal maybe what specifically in your life he's trying to point you to. This has been fun. You guys, this has been such a different type of podcast today, but it's been a blessing for my morning to start it out in the word. And I hope that it's been a blessing to your day, whether you're hearing this in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, um, whatever it might be for you. Um, I just pray that it was a blessing.

And with that, um, I'm going to go have a wonderful beach day today. I hope you have a wonderful day and we'll see you next week.