Power through Surrender

Chapter 9 - You are the Branches

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Andrew Murray addressed this portion of his book to Christian workers. The great commission given to us by Jesus in Matthew 28:16-20 makes every believer a Christian worker. It does not matter if you are raising children to follow Jesus, pastoring a large congregation, or working in any job, “whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men” (Colossians 3:23).

Everything depends on our being right in Christ. If I want good apples, I must have a good apple tree. If I care for the health of the apple tree, the apple tree will give me good apples. And it is just so with our Christian life and work. If our life with Jesus is right, all will come out right. Instruction, suggestion, help, and training in living a Christian life and doing Christian work or service has value. But, in the long run, the greatest essential is to have our full life in Jesus - in other words, to have Jesus Christ in us, working through us. Yes, there are many things to disturb us, or cause us anxious questionings. But, our Master has such a blessing for every one of us and such perfect peace and rest. He has such joy and strength if we can only come into, and be kept in, the right attitude toward Him.

“I am the vine, you are the branches.” What a simple thing it is to be a branch; the branch of a tree or the branch of a vine. The branch grows out of the vine, or out of the tree, and there it lives and grows and in due time, bears fruit. It has no responsibility except to receive sap and nourishment from the root and stem. And if only we knew, by the Holy Spirit, about our relationship to Jesus Christ, our life and work would be changed into the brightest and most heavenly thing on earth. Instead of there ever being soul-weariness or exhaustion, our work would be like a new experience, linking us to Jesus as nothing else can. For, is it not true that often our work comes between us and Jesus? What folly! The very work that He has to do in me and I for Him, I take up in such a way that it separates me from Jesus. Many a laborer in the vineyard has complained that he has too much work, and not enough time for close communion with Jesus. He complains that his usual work weakens his inclination for prayer, and that his many conversations with men darken the spiritual life. Sad thought, that the bearing of fruit should separate the branch from the vine! That must be because we have looked on our work as something other than the branch bearing fruit. May God deliver us from every false thought about the Christian life!

Now, just a few thoughts about this blessed branch-life.

Absolute Dependence

In the first place, being a branch is a life of absolute dependence. The branch has nothing. It just depends on the vine for everything. Absolute dependence is one of the most solemn and precious of thoughts. It has been said that absolute, unalterable dependence upon God alone is the essence of the religion of angels. It should also be that of men. God is everything to the angels, and He is willing to be everything to the Christian. If we can learn to depend on God every moment of the day, everything will come out right. You will receive the higher life if you depend absolutely on God.

Now, here we find it with the vine and the branches. Every vine you ever see, or every bunch of grapes that comes to your table, let it remind you that the branch is absolutely dependent on the vine. The vine has to do the work, and the branch enjoys the fruit of it. What has the vine to do? It has to do a great work. It has to send its roots out into the soil and hunt under the ground – often a long way out – for nourishment, and to drink in moisture. Then, its roots or stems turn the moisture and nourishment into that special sap which makes the fruit that is borne. The vine does the work, and the branch has just to receive the sap from the vine. The sap is then changed into grapes. The vine had the work to do, and the branches had just to depend on the vine and receive what it gave.

Is that literally true of my Lord Jesus? Must I understand that when I am called on to work, share my faith, pray in a group, etc., that all the responsibility of the work is on Jesus? That is exactly what Jesus wants you to understand. Jesus desires that in all your work the very foundation should be the simple, blessed consciousness: Jesus must care for all. And how does He fulfill the trust of that dependence? He does it by sending down the Holy Spirit – not now and then only as a special gift. But remember, the relationship between the vine and the branches is such that hourly, daily, unceasingly, the living connection is maintained. The sap does not flow for a time, and then stop, and then flow again. Instead, moment to moment, the sap flows from the vine to the branches. And just so, your Lord Jesus wants you to take that blessed position as a believer and as a worker. Morning by morning, day by day, hour by hour, and step by step – in every work – I have to abide in Him in the simple, utter helplessness of one who knows nothing. I must be as one who is nothing, and can do nothing. Oh, beloved, study that word nothing. Have you prayed and worshipped God in light of the fact that He is everything and we are nothing? Do you know the blessedness of the word “nothing”?