Dependence

Dependence

Apart from me you can do nothing. . . . This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.

John 15:5, 8

IN WORD The disciples must have been scratching their heads. Jesus told them that God was honored when they bore much fruit. Because just a few sentences earlier, He told them that they couldn’t bear any fruit. At least not on their own. Two thousand years of commentary have given us plenty of time to grasp what Jesus is saying, but the disciples had only had three years with Him. This surely was confusing to them.

We might share their confusion, to a degree. We know that we are to worship God with everything in us, and that includes living a fruit-bearing life. But we easily slip from the spiritual realm into a very natural translation. We think we’re called to go out and work for God. He is honored by fruit, so we intend to bear fruit. We forget a very key element of Jesus’ teaching: We can’t. We don’t have that ability. Unless we’re abiding in the Vine—in Him—we’re just dead branches.

We know the answer, of course, at least in our minds. Jesus is to bear fruit in us and through us. He is the producer, and we’re the branches through whom He produces. But it is remarkably easy to forget that we need to depend on Him as the source of production. We realize eventually that we’re only spinning our wheels by our busywork, but our inclination is only to work harder. We have to train ourselves in an unnatural pose: spiritual, emotional, and even physical dependence.

IN DEED The element of dependence is why God is glorified when we bear fruit. If we achieved things for God, we would be glorified, not Him. But our incapability gives Him a platform to work in the Spirit. He can work in an insufficient life to much greater honor than He can in a self-sufficient life. Our inabilities can be turned into an act of worship, if we’ll offer them up to His power.

Have you learned yet that your dependence on God—your manifest weakness, in fact—is an occasion for His glory? Let Him be honored in you. Learn dependence.

The more we depend on God, the more dependable we find He is.

—CLIFF RICHARD