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“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

We’ve been thinking about living in such a way that we finish well. Yesterday, Pastor Anthony reflected on one of the deepest promises of the Scriptures, “God is with us.” Today, I want to reflect on a particular aspect of what it means that God is with us.

When we think about finishing well or even starting well, we usually think about what we plan on accomplishing with our lives. In one way or another we are all doers. We want to accomplish something.

When I was growing up on the farm, one of the first tools I learned to use was a broom. On Saturday mornings, I would be assigned sweeping duty. All the alleyways in our barns needed to be swept. My dad would check afterwards and note placed I had missed. Soon, I began to take pride in a clean floor. It was a good morning if dad’s keen eyes couldn’t find any spots I had missed.

When I became a pastor, I discovered something odd. Preaching a sermon or helping someone through a crisis did not bring the same kind of satisfaction as a well swept floor. There was little capacity to see the fruit of my labours. There was no sense of being finished, having accomplished the task. There was no broom to put back in its corner. I preached sermons, but what impact did they have on the listeners? I rarely knew.

And I was frustrated.

John 15 offered a different framework by which to live: ‘remain in me’, Jesus says. Here, he gives us a different goal for life than the one the world offers. Rather than focusing on the things we produce; we need to focus on him. This is a deep Christian principle. We often try to be more loving and more joyful and more humble and we try to have more self-control. These are all good things which we ought to strive for. But Jesus says that the road to these things is through ‘abiding in him.’

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

We cannot force ourselves to be more loving or joyful or humbler. This is how God is with us. We are his garden and he works in us and with us and around us so that we produce fruit.

How do we abide in Jesus? Christians have always believed that the two primary ways to abide in Jesus are to read the Bible and to pray to God. There are other important elements as well, such as worshipping with other believers, celebrating the sacraments and giving gifts to the poor. But those two, scripture and prayer, are the primary means.

Sometimes these practices become things we need to accomplish. They become tasks. Then its time to step back and recall what they are, means to abide in Jesus. Remember Pastor Anthony’s recent question, “How is your love life…with God?”

Reading scripture and prayer are about that, about abiding in our Lord and Saviour. And after abiding, God produces fruit in us. Abiding in him is the goal of our lives.