Love in Proximity
When working with young people, in my case, with students from grades 6th-12th, you learn to minister through proximity. You quickly find that the time you spend with students becomes the greatest tool to minister to them and share the gospel. It requires proximity to their lives.
As I reflect on Monday night’s Central Michigan Christian Men’s Fellowship gathering, I have realized that the approach of proximity is not just a young people thing! Pastor Brian Ross brought the teaching of John 15 to us, and the scriptures just lit up! The idea of abiding in Christ, producing fruit, with a tending Father, its truly amazing. Jesus paints a beautiful picture of what life is like when we live within a close relationship with him. Let’s read John 15:
“1I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 Every branch in me that does not produce fruit he removes, and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without me.
John 15:1-5 CSB
The vine analogy that Jesus gives is so powerful. We see each character of the narrative beautifully laid out for us to understand our purpose and connection to our Father. God assumes the role of the gardener, tending to the soil of his creation. Jesus is the vine in which the Father has cultivated for us to thrive from. We are the branches, which in careful attention, will produce fruit off the vine. Each piece of the picture Jesus is weaving has a structured purpose of staying within proximity of the “true vine.” This is the area of dwelling in which God can tend to. In verse 2 mentions “removing” and “pruning.” Both of these processes are not separation from God but refinement in him! “Removing” is better translated as “lifted up.” This is a process of lifting heavy vines from sagging onto the ground, causing them to take root and separate from the “true vine.” And pruning, though painful is how growth comes! We must continue to refine our will to bend and form to God’s will. Our old ways are cut out, removed, and forgotten. That takes the pruning of the Father, the tender of the garden. We continue on in John:
6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.
John 15:6-8 CSB
Separate from Christ, we see a hard contrast. There is no fruit. There is no life. A branch cannot live on its own, it must be connected to that which tends and feeds it. We, as humanity, cannot find a purposeful existence outside of the selfless life that Christ has shown us to live. One that abides in him in all ways!
Jesus brings this home with his command to us following the contrast of abiding vs rejecting the true vine:
9 “As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
11 “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
12 “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.
17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.[1]
John 15:9-17 CSB
Jesus establishes the grounds for abiding in him. We must obey his commands, and look at the perfect command he gives us, to “love one another as I have loved you.” This is our call to community. This is our call to live within proximity of one another. We are commanded to do life together! With the love of Christ in our hearts, abiding in him, together, with the tending of the Father, we can bear much fruit! This is the promise of a life with proximity to Christ.
Allow God to tend to your branch this week. Abide closer and closer to Christ and his command. Love one another!
Love in Proximity.
[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15&version=CSB