To Be Least

1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain 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.
5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

      Here Jesus is clearly addressing Christians shown by verse 3 in which he states that "You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you." We are cleansed by Jesus's blood which he shed for mankind.

      "No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." We as Christians are identified by our fruit. The unsaved can be identified by their lack of fruit or the quality of their fruit. "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit." (Matthew 12:33) So we must remain on the true vine (Jesus) in order to produce good fruit.

      "6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned." The key word here is "remain." If we do not remain in Jesus, we will be ultimately thrown into the fire and burned. So is it our decision whether or not we remain in him? We can choose to leave and reject God by embracing sin, however he will cut us off if we do not produce fruit. "2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit..."

      Now what exactly is fruit? First of all we as Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit when we become Christians. The Holy Spirit dwells in us as Christians. "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (1 Cor. 6:19) Knowing this, there is something called fruit of the Spirit as talked about in Galations 5. "22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control." So there is some of the fruits that we as Christians produce.

      "14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (James 2) Here James notes that faith without deeds or actions is dead. Notice faith comes first, faith that Jesus is God's Son and that he died for our sins. Faith that we will enter heaven if we continue to lead a holy life. "Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." (Romans 7) We are in fact a slave to Christ now that we are saved. We promise to obey his commands to our ability although we all fall short of the kingdom of God. Because of this we perform actions and deeds according to his commands. To sum up what James is saying is simple. We become Christians by faith. Now that we are Christians we obey God and thus have actions and deed. Faith without obedience is in a sense dead.

      According to the scripture God will obviously cut us off of the "true vine" or Jesus. We will be thrown away, and in the end will be "thrown into the fire and burned." This is an obvious representation for hell. When it comes down to it, if we as Christians do not produce fruit, do not have actions and deeds to back up our faith, we will be thrown into hell unless we again repent of our sins and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior before our death, realizing that we are sinners in need of Him and begin to produce fruit.

God bless.