Dear Ray,
I think we need to stop at the word fruit, because we can agree about abiding and then, with that one word, bring the entire burden of religious production back upon the believer.
When I speak of fruit, I am speaking of Zoe working within us and finding expression through our humanity. I am not counting people. I am not measuring how many we have brought into a gathering, persuaded to believe, or placed under someone’s care. People are people to be loved. They are not the produce of our spiritual effectiveness.
The fruit is the expression of the life.
If we miss that, we can spend our lives working for something we call fruit while being drawn out of the abiding from which genuine fruit proceeds.
I have come to believe that much of what Christians have labored so hard to accomplish during these past two thousand years has served religion rather than Christ. I cannot judge every person’s inward life, and I do not dismiss their sincerity or sacrifice. But sincerity does not settle the question of source. People can give everything they possess to sustain something that continually directs believers toward religious activity and away from living by the resurrection life within.
We have built organizations, extended movements, filled calendars, trained workers, increased attendance, and preserved teachings. We have counted these things and called the increase fruit.
But what increased?
Was it the expression of Christ in human beings? Or was it the reach of an undertaking?
That question cannot be answered by pointing to the size of the undertaking.
A religious system can grow through the ordinary capacities of human nature: persuasive speech, determination, organization, loyalty, pressure, and the desire to belong. None of these requires resurrection life. An impressive result can be obtained while everyone involved is drawing upon the resources of the natural man.
Putting Christ’s name over the result does not establish that Christ was its source.
This is why the branch matters so much to me.
The branch has no fruit goals.
It has no project for increasing its yield. It does not adopt fruit bearing as its special emphasis. It does not examine neighboring branches and become ashamed of its comparative performance.
It lives by the life of the vine.
We hear that picture, acknowledge its beauty, and then immediately begin instructing the branch about its responsibilities. It must bear fruit. It must gain someone. It must care for someone. It must participate in the work.
Soon the branch is carrying an entire program.
We have taken the consequence of life and made it the assignment of the believer.
That reversal is devastating because the assignment summons our independent strength. Once I accept responsibility for producing a spiritual result, my mind begins arranging how to accomplish it. My will supplies determination. My emotions become entangled with success and failure. I begin laboring to bring about what I have been told the Lord requires.
And all this can happen while I continue speaking about abiding.
Abiding has become the preparation for the work. Christ becomes the supply I seek so that I can perform it. The work itself becomes the governing concern.
But Christ has given Himself as our life. He has not merely offered assistance to a religious worker.
Zoe is living within us. The fruit is that life coming to expression: love that is not manufactured, patience that does not depend upon suppressing resentment, kindness without a hidden demand, freedom from the need to prevail. These are not separate virtues we set out to produce. They belong to the character of the life we have received.
Even here, we must be careful. If I turn patience into tomorrow’s goal, I can make another project out of the fruit. I can spend the day inspecting myself for evidence of improvement instead of living from Christ.
The branch does not become fruitful by studying fruit.
Its entire possibility remains in the vine.
Of course this life can reach another person. Someone may believe through what they hear and encounter among us. Someone may be comforted, fed, or cared for. But that person does not become my fruit to count, possess, or present as evidence that I have fulfilled my calling.
The love expressed toward that person belongs to Christ. Any life awakened in that person belongs to Christ. We are fellow participants in what He gives.
I want to say this without leaving a small opening through which the old burden can return: fruit bearing must not become a second occupation alongside abiding. The moment it becomes an independent goal, it begins drawing us toward an independent source.
We do not need more ingenious ways of making the branch productive. We need to stop loading it with undertakings that teach it to live from itself.
I include my own writing in this. If these letters become a project whose success I must secure, they can draw me out of the very reality they describe. Their subject matter will not protect me. Their usefulness will not excuse the departure.
For two thousand years, we have been capable of confusing labor for religion with the expression of Christ. We should be willing to question everything that keeps that confusion alive.
The branch has one life.
Its fruit is the expression of that life.
Let us stop making the believer responsible for manufacturing what only Zoe can bring forth.
With affection,
Brent
