Lisa Barry: All this week on Gateway To Joy, we?ve been going through a challenging series called "The Life of the Vine." Its origin comes from Jesus? words when he told his followers that he was the vine and they were the branches. And apart from him, they could do nothing. That holds true for all of us who claim to be Christians. It's not possible for a branch to exist alone and if we want to be fruitful, then it?s imperative that we stay connected and receiving from the vine. Elisabeth has much more to say on the subject so let?s get started with today?s program.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That?s what the Bible says. "And underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you this week about the branch and the vine. And let me read from John 15. Jesus is speaking here and He says, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He 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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain 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. 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 you Me you can do nothing." Zero, zilch.

Well, I added that of course, but I just want to emphasis the fact that if we pull away from Him--if we refuse to be in the vine--then He says apart from Me you can do nothing. We are going to be quite useless in other words.

So this whole pruning process, the loss of somebody you love perhaps, you feel a tremendous loss. Something has been stripped away from your life, which makes you feel useless and empty. Or there have been disappointments in people that you had trusted. Have you thought of that disappointment as a pruning process? You wonder why did God let that happen? Well, it's because God wants to see fruit in your life.

A failure which seems irremediable. A hurt. An experience of painful stripping of some sort. Maybe you've been fired from a job. Or you have a deep misunderstanding with somebody that you felt would surely understand. Pause now and think.

Why is God doing this to me? Answer: to make you fruitful, that's why. What else do you need to know? What you suffer the vine suffers. "My Father is the gardener, abide." Now that was a word that I use to stew over for years. I kept thinking, "I just don't get it! How is it that I am to abide? What does that mean?"

Well, it just means stay put. Sit there. Stay there. Don't leave. Abide. Allow God to do His pruning work in your soul. Are you surprised when the pruning work begins? Are you pained that your loving Heavenly Father is treating you in such a cruel way seemingly? Was this unexpected?

Well, we Christians ought to expect to need to be pruned. Our oneness with Christ is not our own work. It's not a matter of human wisdom or human will, it's an act of God--a complete life union which is effected between Him and me, a sinner. It's the same Spirit which lives in Christ which lives in me as I open my heart to Him.

The Bible says that we know that we live in Him and He in us because He has given us His Spirit. We know that we live in Him and He in us because He has given us His Spirit. But I need to remind you again, that He will not invade your life. He waits with perfect courtesy for you to surrender yourself to Him--to invite Him to be Lord of your life.

I want to read again from Andrew Murray's little book called Abide in Christ. "Without the vine the branch can do nothing. To the vine it owes its right of place in the vineyard, its life and it's fruitfulness." Now I don't know what vineyard you are living in right now, but let's try to continue using this metaphor. That wherever it is--the right place where God has put you--that is where God expects you to be fruitful. And so He says, "without Me you can do nothing."

"The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him. The daily inflowing of the life sap of the Holy Spirit is His only power to bring forth fruit. He lives alone in Him and is for each moment dependent on Him alone." So you and I are the branch and Jesus is the vine. And so the branch has to be attached to the vine in order to be any good. You know that. You break a branch and it's not going to produce fruit.

"Without the branch the vine can also do nothing." Now that's a startling statement. "A vine without branches can bear no fruit. So no less indispensable than the vine to the branch is the branch to the vine. Such is the wonderful condescension of the grace of Jesus that just as His people are dependent on Him, He has made Himself dependent on them. Without His disciples He cannot dispense His blessing to the world. As someone has said, 'we are His hands and feet and voice.' Jesus is not here in the flesh; you and I are. And so He asks us to remain in the vine in order that we, as the branches, may bring forth fruit. He cannot offer sinners the grace of heaven.

"All the vine possesses belongs to the branches. The vine does not gather from the soil its fatness and sweetness for itself. All it has is at the disposal of the branches. As it is the parent so is the servant of the branches. And Jesus, to Whom we owe our life, how completely He gives Himself for us and to us. Jesus said, 'The glory which Thou gavest Me (speaking to His Father) I have given them' (speaking of you and me). He that believes in me the works that I do shall he do also, and greater shall he do.

"All His fullness and all His riches are for thee, O believer. All that Jesus is in heaven He is for us. The parable teaches us the object of the union. The branches are for fruit and fruit alone." I'm sure that as I look back over my life, especially my 11 years as a missionary in Ecuador, I was hoping that I was bearing fruit. I'm sure there were times when I was not. When I was discouraged, when I was feeling helpless and useless. Now it's possible, of course, that when I get to heaven I'm going to find out that even in my most helpless times God was working in me and through me. I don't think I'm the one to make the judgements about that. But I do know that I have not been by any means perfectly faithful and a perfect follower--not by a long shot.

And so I need to remind myself again and again that this Gateway To Joy thing is not going to be of any use whatsoever unless I remain in Christ. These words that I dish out to you, they don't come from Elisabeth Elliot's head. They come from my heart, but my heart learned them from Christ Himself in His Word. And so I need to be faithful before God in studying His Word, in living it out, in giving it out, and being willing to be pruned. God is in the business of producing wonderful, perfect, delicious, beautiful fruit. We know that we live Him and He in us because He has given us His Spirit.

And I don't expect that I'm ever going to plumb the depths of that marvel that Christ is in me and He is my hope of glory. I may be speaking to somebody who has given up hope--all hope--not just the hope of glory. God loves you. He's asking you to trust Him and to be thankful. This is a lesson that the Lord has been really pounding into my head lately, that I need to be more thankful. And I've been grateful that my daughter Valarie has again and again reminded me of that lesson. Not that she was preaching at me, and saying, "Momma, you need to be more thankful." She was saying, "The Lord is showing me that I need to be thankful." And as I see that growth in her spiritual life, I thank God.

And I thank God for His patience with me. For His love. For the clarity of His Word. The many different ways in which He reminds us that He wants to live in us and to produce fruit through us. But gracious, how longsuffering, how gentle He is with us. Do you love Jesus? Have you invited Him into your heart? Jesus said, "Him that cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out. He is never going to shut the door in your face when you come to Him.

Lisa Barry: And with that comforting reminder, it?s time to wrap things up for today. But before we go I want to tell you how you can get a copy of the book that Elisabeth has been reading from. It?s called Abide in Christ and inside you?ll find daily challenges to stay close to Christ and abide with him in the everyday tasks of life. The cost is $9.50 and you can send that along with your request to:

Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, NE 68501. Or call toll-free, 1-800-759-4JOY. That?s 1-800-759-4569. And have you found us on line yet? You'll find everything there is to know about Gateway To Joy on our Web site. That address is gatewaytojoy.org.

Gateway To Joy is a production of Back to the Bible and thanks to all of you for tuning in Gateway To Joy today. The program is sustained through many friends who participate by writing, praying and giving. I hope you?ll consider if God wants you to do any or all of these things. Be sure and join us again tomorrow when Elisabeth brings this series to a close with an important reminder about the sacrificial nature of life in the vine. That?s next time on Gateway To Joy.