Andy Cornett | living in the new creation

endlessly captivated by the person and work of the resurrected Jesus

nothing or everything?

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If you’ve read John 15:1-12, you’ve noticed that there are a few key pictures here that Jesus uses: gardener, vine, branches, pruning, fruit. Think about it.

  • Who is the vine? Who is the gardener? Who are the branches?
  • How are the branches related to the vine?
  • What are the branches supposed to do? How do they do that?
  • What happens to the branches that don’t bear fruit?
  • What happens to the ones that do bear fruit?

Get the picture? Branches that don’t grow fruit are cut off – dead, useless, good only for the fire. Branches that do bear fruit get … pruned: chopped up a bit by a skillful gardener in a way that makes them healthier. Stronger. More fruitful.

Look at it this way: a branch never goes up to a vine and says: “hey, let me be in you!” No! The vine always grows the branch first! Jesus always comes to us first and grows new life in us. And since we are “branches” in his “vine” – the question becomes … (1) how do we remain in him so that we can (2) bear the fruit that he desires?

Check yourself here: what do you think it means to “remain” in Jesus? (your translation might instead say “abide” or “live”). How do we do it?

I had a lot of great answers to this question for years – until I spent time on 15:10. Check it for yourself. Jesus says: you will remain in my love if you … keep my commands. His words “remain in us” when we actually do what he says. Keeping Jesus’ commands is how we remain in him, live in him, stay connected to him! Now what does he command us to do? Read 15:12, 17. (Or if you like emphasis, read John 13:14-15, 34; 14:15, 21, 23, 24 (the opposite), 15:10, 12, 14, 17 plus 1 John 2:5b-6, 3:24 … get the picture?)

Think with me: as we (1) keep his command to “love one another as he loved us,” we (2) “remain in him” and (3) he has promised that we will “bear fruit.” So what’s the fruit? It’s what the vine produces. The fruit is that we become the kind of loving person that he is.

Now what is Jesus’ point about our “bearing fruit (15:8)?” Our fruit [loving one another] shows the world that we are … Jesus’ disciples.

Do you see how radically simple and beautiful this is? We get it all so wrong: we think that our job is to do all these good things so that then God then loves us and approves us and lets us remain in him – “if I bear fruit then I get to stay in the vine!) – but that is so backwards! God loves us first – as I have loved you, Jesus said – and only then can we really love others and let that love be the evidence that we belong to Jesus, live in him and him in us.

Have you ever paused and thanked God for this? That he has loved us first … that he makes clear his command to us (love others as he loved us!) … and that he has promised to live in us.

Ask Jesus to live in and through you so you can love others and they will see that you belong to him. That is a prayer he can and will answer (15:7).

Read John 15:6 again. What does Jesus promise to those of us who try to live our daily lives without (“apart from”) him?

Those words really freak me out – because I know that a lot of the time, I’m trying to make it through the day and really do something, really be something … without Jesus.

Where I live in Florida, I’m surrounded by citrus trees: oranges, lemons, mangoes, limes – and those are just my neighbors. I know those branches that are dead or fallen off can’t produce anything. But man do I think I am different; I think I can really get though each day and be something amazing … apart from Jesus. And what do I hear him say to that? “apart from me, you can do nothing.” Nothing.

Can I press you on this for a moment? This is the whole point of the God’s great news: that in Jesus, we are united to God himself! The amazing love and unity that God enjoys in himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is now shared with us in the person of Jesus. Our relationship with God has gone from terribly “ruined” to gloriously “restored.” We now live in him and he enables us to go through life with him, loving like him.

I think the only way you can tell if you are “bearing fruit” (and therefore remaining in Jesus) is to ask yourself: am I becoming a person who loves more – or less? Better yet: do a “fruit check.” Ask someone who knows you well to give you an honest answer: are you becoming more loving – or less? Are your growing in the peace and joy that love brings?

Live connected to Jesus (remaining in him by keeping his commands) and he lives in and through y’all to love others. And the whole world knows it.

So which will it be? Nothing – or everything?
Live apart from Jesus by neglecting his commands … and nothing.
Remain in him by keeping his commands … and everything.

Believe it: as you live today and keep his commands, he is in you, with you, living through your very life.

playing your (humble) part

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Each summer for the past several years, I’ve written a few days’ worth of devotions for Sonservants: short-term student ministry mission trips through Youth Conference Ministries. Though I don’t enjoy the work, I love getting to the summer and seeing students actually use them – and God at work through them. Here’s an excerpt from one this summer (this part picks up after a study of Philippians 2:1-12).
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quiet time on Pensacola Beach

Here’s the astonishing bit: In Jesus, God has come down and drawn near to us. He actually became one of us: a human being. He did this to meet us face to face, to show us who he is, to rescue us from our sin and death and give us new LIFE – Life forever, in Him! That is one humbling message.

But you CANNOT become humble by trying. You don’t get the virtue of humility by working at it. If you try to, you will constantly be thinking about yourself, focusing on what you do, evaluating how humble you are – and that’s the complete opposite!

I think the way you become humble is you focus on other things and learn to forget about yourself. You don’t take advantage of other people. You don’t force your way. You stop caring if you get the credit, or if everyone thinks you’re awesome. And then one day – a month later, a year, a decade, etc. – you realize that you’ve started to change. You’re different. Here’s what I mean: The point God teaches us here through Paul goes like this:

  • Live together in Jesus – in a smooth, free way where everybody plays their part! Work together, love together, encourage each other.
  • Look after other people; pour your heart and life into loving them. In fact, treat them as better than yourself – don’t worry about who gets the credit.
  • Look at Jesus, who He is and what He did. He is God, and yet He humbled Himself enough to die for you and me. Look again: this is who God is.
  • Spend your life this way, and guess what? You just might find that your life, your attitude, looks like Jesus Himself.

Every summer after my four years in college, I worked at a big sports camp in Missouri. Our director was probably the most humble person I have met. Spend any time with him and you’d realize that this guy isn’t very concerned about himself, nor does he think he’s that big of a deal. Now we all thought he was completely amazing, better than any of us, but I genuinely think he didn’t care about any of that. He’d make time for the smallest kid or the worst counselor, he was patient with us, he was devoted to us … and any one of us would have done anything for him.

He sticks in my mind when I think about what it means to be a humble servant. No arrogance. No putting yourself first. Not looking out for #1. No demanding your way or expecting everyone to notice you. Just a brilliant life, a humble life, a Jesus-style life.

So don’t worry about yourself for a bit. God knows who you are, what He’s doing in you, and what part you’ll play in the story.

Let me back up a bit further. Between the ages of 16 -18, I spent a lot of time in drama departments at a high school and college. We all loved acting, auditioning for new roles – but we hated the waiting to see who got what part. If you got a lead role, the excitement and pride and sense of how important you are just welled up in you. If you got a small part or side role, you hated it. You thought it was lame, worthless – you wanted to be somebody big, a star. Over the years, I got both parts. But oddly enough, the one I enjoyed the most was one of the smallest. Because once the lights came on, it was about the show. It wasn’t about me. It was about the story we were telling together, about the experience of other people, about the awe they felt when you all played your parts for a bigger purpose. It was beautiful.

You have a part to play as a follower of Jesus. I don’t know if it is big or small – you might not even know yet. In John 3:30 we find this situation: lots of people in the crowds were leaving John and going over to follow Jesus. Jesus was becoming more important, John less. People thought John might have a problem with his part getting smaller, and what’s he going to do? John’s response: no problem. It’s supposed to be that way – it doesn’t matter how much attention I get, how important I am, who notices me – my job is just to point to Jesus.

Be honest: don’t you need to hear that? Your importance is measured by Jesus – He loved you enough to share His own life with you, to call you to follow Him. He gave you a great task to do: love others as He has loved you. And yet – we still look to everything else to give us a sense of value and importance.

  • We “have” to have to a girlfriend or boyfriend (now I matter to somebody!).
  • Our hearts sink if we log on to Facebook and there’s no red box of notifications (no one is paying attention to me!)
  • It doesn’t matter how well everyone thought I did (I know I can do better – I’m pathetic!)
  • We repeatedly text someone who doesn’t answer (why aren’t they listening to me!)

Really? This is no way to live.

The truth is: God sees you. God knows you. He places incredible value on your life. The Bible says He knows the number of hairs on your head, knows when you wake up and go to sleep, what you do, who you are. Do you want to have a life that’s worth living? Then give up, now. Give up on the idea that you have to be the most important. Learn to play your part – whether big or small – without worrying about yourself. Let God become greater in your life, and let “you” become less important to yourself!

My guess is at this point you know God has come to you. You know He’s called your name and said “follow Me.” You know what that looks like: loving God with all you have, and loving others as He has loved you. You do that as you keep your eyes on Jesus and follow Him. It’s simple. You may not think about it this way, but as you all do this together, you act this life out: You put on a play, you tell a story for the watching world – about a great God who gave Himself in great love for you and me in Jesus, the Christ, the world’s true King. And just maybe – there’s someone right now watching your life. As you play your part – great or small – they see in you the great and glorious Jesus and then bend their knee and learn to praise His name.

“He must become greater; I must become less.”