“Remain in me and I will 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.” John 15: 4

Jesus gives a metaphor of a gardener, a vine, and its branches. God the Father is the gardener, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. As a gardener cares for his garden by throwing away dead branches and pruning the living ones, so God also cuts off those who do not bear fruit and prunes those that do so that they will be even more fruitful. When I was younger, we had a vineyard in our backyard. Every spring, my mom would prune the vineyard and I would comment that she cut too much, that she will kill the plant. But she told me, “I know what I am doing. You will see.” Indeed, ever autumn, the vineyard would be bursting with grapes, so much that many grapes would fall on the ground. I learned that only the gardener knows how to make his vineyard fruitful.

Jesus says in verse 3 that we are clean because of his word. God’s pruning tool is his word. The word of God reveals what is true. It reveals our sins and the reality that we are fighting a spiritual battle against sin, against Satan. It commands us to love God with all our heart, to follow Jesus denying ourselves, to love our neighbour with the love of Jesus. Sometimes, it is really painful to be confronted with God’s words. But God surely is working to bear fruits in us that bring him glory. God is the one who is concerned about how to bear fruit, not me. He gives the branches only 1 direction – remain in the vine, Jesus. This is a command because actually it is not easy to remain in Jesus. So many things cloud my heart and mind daily. What I have to buy, what I have to cook, how to care for Dani, cleaning the house, teaching my classes, even ministry things like attending meetings, teaching the bible, these can become busy chores. There are also temptations in every corner. The message of the world is always to live for yourself, to do what makes you happy, to seek your own glory, that there is no sin, there is no consequences of sin, there is no truth, there is no God.

When I was in high school, I started to entertain such doubts about God. I felt stressed knowing that there was a holy God who could see everything I think and do. So I thought that if I stop believing in God, I’d be happier and freer. Until then, my parents instilled in me the importance of believing and obeying the word of God as absolute truth. But I let go and tried to see if I could be okay without God. That was the period I tried harder to dress better, look better, make friends, and wasted a lot of time watching dramas. Slowly, I began to feel really meaningless. I fell into depression because I couldn’t find joy in the world or in God. I wished to die. At this time, my parents gave me 2 words, John 81: 31 and 2 Corinthians 10: 5. “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” “Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ”. I am not much of an emotional person, I grasp reality more through my thoughts. Hence, these words were very powerful to me. I realized that faith in God’s word is a choice and if I choose to believe, then every word is true. But if I refused, then nothing is true and everything is relative and in the end, meaningless. I believe the Holy Spirit helped me to make the decision to believe the word of God. From then, I literally began to experience the power of the word of God, beyond my understanding. Indeed, the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. The moment I surrendered to the authority of the word of God, my sin of unbelief was revealed as the most grievous sin that crucified Jesus to the cross. It was so humbling to realize that I am actually nobody though I thought I was. The word of God still shows me how deeply I don’t believe God. But also the word of God revealed the deeper mercy and grace of God that saved me from the pit of hell both now and eternally. Since this time, though I had ups and downs, the word of God has been my firm foundation of truth in confusing times, it has been my daily food, water, and air, it has been my comfort and strength when I was weak, it is truly Christ living with me and in me. This word, “Remain in me” came to me many times when I was overwhelmed and lonely in law school and also many times here in Brazil.

With the title of missionary, I felt that I had to produce something, a visible change. I had to prove that I was a good older sister to younger second gens, a good co-worker, a godly wife and mother, a powerful disciple-maker. However, I think at some point or another, I failed in all of these things. Moreover, I deeply learned that I can’t do it on my own. Without Jesus, I am just a selfish, short-sighted, pleasure-seeking, judgmental hypocrite. I have little self-control and am driven by what makes me happy. Even this week, I felt so busy because Dani started daycare and I had many English classes and bible studies. Teaching the bible felt so superficial because I failed to keep God’s word alive in me all the time. I eat daily bread but even daily bread can become religious and for my own sense of achievement. Satan comes to take away the word quickly as soon as I think of all the things I have to do and when I rest, I am tempted just to relax and watch Youtube. This constant abiding in the word of God is difficult and takes much practice because I can’t see the fruit of it. But as my key verse says Psalm 1: 2, he who meditates on the word of God day and night becomes a tree that bears fruit in season and whose leaf never withers. My daily fight is to simply come to the word of God, to love the word of God, to be filled with the word of God, to think based on the word of God, to speak based on the word of God, and to practically obey the word of God. Even though I don’t see it, I believe that the mind and heart of Christ Jesus will grow in me and change me to be a true blessing for God’s kingdom. I see that when I do spend more time with Jesus, I have more patience with others, more resilience to bear physical pain, I can be thankful and joyful as I put my hope in God’s kingdom, I can be a better wife, a better mother, a better sister, a better friend, a better shepherd. Surely this is not me but Christ living in me. The key is to remain in Jesus, to grow in love with Jesus. God will bear the fruit.

I also learned that remaining in Jesus is not just a preference, it is an order. Verse 6 says that God cuts off those that do not bear fruit and throws them into the fire. This is a word of judgment. Even though we often don’t talk about hell, Jesus talked a lot about hell. It means the matter of remaining in Jesus and bearing fruit is very important to God, the most important. The life of following Jesus, believing in Jesus, serving Jesus, worshipping Jesus, it is all or nothing. It not according to convenience or preference. Later, Jesus says that even the world will hate us if we love Jesus. We cannot live both for the world and for God, seeking both my kingdom and his kingdom. There is judgment. I learned that as disciples of Jesus, we do need holy fear of God. God’s holiness and righteousness is part of his perfect love. Without it, we have no need to be pruned and sanctified. I pray to be a woman who truly fears God from my heart that I may live wisely in this world, seeking his kingdom first.

Jesus set the perfect example of how to love God. He first received love from God and made it his mission to love God and obey God first. Jesus prayed early in the morning and fought against his flesh in order to find the will of God and submit to the will of God. If this is what Jesus did, surely we will have to too. Second, the love Jesus has for us is exactly the love of God. It is complete and totally sacrificially, uncalculated. It is poured out as Jesus poured out his life for us. Something that I newly realized as a mother is that it takes love to discipline your child. It is much easy to just say “okokok” to make your child happy, even if you know it’s bad for them. But one time becomes two times, becomes 10 times, becomes a habit, becomes the rest of their life. It is how children become addicted to all sorts of bad things that destroy them in the end. But to say “no” or “you shouldn’t do this” is hard but it is true love. This has given me so much perspective on God’s law. I used to read through Leviticus thinking how boring and dull and pointless all those laws were. But actually every single one of those laws reveals the depth of God’s heart for his people. He wanted to so badly to go the way of life that even though he knew they would violate all of them, he gave it anyway. “Perhaps they might listen and repent.” I believe this is why Jesus said that if we keep his commands we will remain in his love. If we truly know and believe that God’s word is meant to give us the best, if we truly believe that each word that comes from the mouth of God is a profession of his love for us, then we would truly love his word, we would struggle as Jesus did to obey God’s word and his will.

In marriage, I am thinking about what the connection is between love and joy. In the first year of marriage, I felt confused because I was living with someone I didn’t know and is so different from me. I was scared about what the future would be, how we would ever be able to become one. I didn’t think joy was a part of love and that love in marriage was more about commitment than something deeper. But as time goes by, I see the mystery of marriage, how when two people really love eachother there is joy. Joy comes from loving and being loved perfectly. Jesus wants to have this joy with each one of us. It’s the deepest, most intimate love relationship that exists, so it is the deepest and most profound joy we could ever know. Without this love relationship with Jesus, anything I do for the ministry or the church is just religious actions. God hates religion. What he wants is love and worship from the heart. Such obedience that comes out of love and trust is what qualifies us to be friends of God. He calls us friends. What a dignified title, a friend of God. in Jesus, I am not only a child of God but a friend of God. We are business partners in kingdom work of saving souls. We begin to care what he cares about, lament for what he laments for, and our prayers reflect that. These days, my prayer life has become really routine. I pray the same thing everyday for about 15 minutes and finish. But studying Jeremiah, I have begun to pray “Teach me to pray. Show me your heart. Make me your vessel. Help me to cry for lost souls and because of the power of sin. Help me to have the fire of the Holy Spirit to preach your word so that even one more person might come to know you.” I pray for this. I pray to be a vessel of Christ, a friend of God like Abraham who prayed with God’s broken heart for Sodom and Gomorrah.

In the end, all of this is because of God’s grace. I have been saved by grace, I have been called by grace, I am being sanctified by grace. I can have confidence in his love for me in Jesus. When I am tired and confused, tempted and weak, this moment I am to remember his choosing grace and run to Jesus and rest there. Whatever the cost, Jesus is worth it. Lord, thank you for your precious words that sanctifies us. Thank you for choosing us as your friends. Help us to have a deep love relationship with you that we may trust and obey your words out of real love. Bear fruits in and through us for your glory. And help us to extend this love of Christ to each other. I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.