I am the sprouting vine and you’re my branches. As you live in union with me as your source, fruitfulness will stream from within you—but when you live separated from me you are powerless… if you live in life-union with me and if my words live powerfully within you—then you can ask whatever you desire and it will be done. When your lives bear abundant fruit, you demonstrate that you are my mature disciples who glorify my Father!
I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts. If you keep my commands, you will live in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands, for I continually live nourished and empowered by his love. My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy that I experience will fill your hearts with overflowing gladness!
Jesus
Let’s say someone saved your life one day. How would you live in relation to that person? You’d be thankful - of course you would!
But would your rescuer want a note, card, or email from you every day thanking him and expressing that you owed him your life? I mean, every day? Or even every Sunday? Just ask yourself, would you? Probably not. So maybe your rescuer would want something different too. And let’s suppose that one day he expressed it to you like this:
“I’ve been watching you for a long time, admiring you, and I’ve been hoping we could be friends.”
“Really?”
“Yep. What do you say - want to hang out?”
How would you respond? Maybe something like, “Sure! Tell me about yourself.” And it would begin.
Regularly, I believe, you would remind your friend of the time he rescued you. Your friend might even bring it up now and then as one of the best days of his life because of the relationship the two of you were now enjoying. The more you hung out together, the more deeply profound it would all be—you would enjoy him, and he would enjoy you. The less you would have to work at your relationship, and the more you would just do it: relate. Enjoy the closeness of your friendship. Sure, there might be an occasional distraction or seasonal shift in your relationship. But you would always know, and so would he.
This is relationship with Jesus.
An excerpt from The Heart of a Warrior Journal Workbook.
