Our Security for Eternity - the Gospel of John নমুনা

Read: John 15:1–16:33

SOAP: John 15:1

“I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.”

Today’s reading again picks up in the middle of Jesus’ final evening with His disciples before His crucifixion. Jesus had already washed their feet, sent out His betrayer, announced He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and begun explaining the ministry of the coming Holy Spirit. In today’s reading, the meal had finished, and Jesus offered final instructions and warnings to His disciples. Before these warnings and instructions, John includes the final claim of Jesus: “I am the true vine.”

In the first sign John used to show us that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way to eternal life, Jesus turned water into wine. Wine comes from grapes, which grow on a vine, an abundant fruit in the region of Jerusalem. When branches are separated from the vine, they begin to die and no longer produce fruit. However, when the branches are connected to the vine, their source of life, they bear much fruit.

Jesus commanded His disciples, and all His followers, to remain in Him, the true Vine. When we remain in Him, we honor the Father, and we show we are His disciples. If we begin to live our lives apart from the true Vine, we will wither. We draw life from Jesus by clinging to Him each day.

When we remain in Jesus, we can follow His command to love one another. When we remain in His love, we obey His commandments, and we love as He loved us. Jesus displays the level of commitment we are to have in love for our brothers and sisters in Christ: we must be willing to lay down our lives for others as Jesus laid down His life for us.

While we may not all face life or death circumstances because of our faith or be faced with a choice of laying down our life for another, some of us will. Jesus warned the disciples of what was to come: the world would hate them because it hated Him. The world will always persecute followers of Christ. Jesus offered these warnings and commands so that we will remain in Him. Even though we will face trouble, death, and persecution, we can remain in Him. He is the true source of life. He is the Vine that sustains us, provides for us, and keeps us. May we believe in Him and cling to Him as the true Vine no matter what comes.