Apart from Me...

There is a very short sentence with an incredibly powerful punch that has been pressed into my heart more and more over the past year: "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." It comes from John 15, when Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches. In the first part of verse 5, He says He is the vine and we are the branches and then paints a beautiful picture of the relationship with Him we're called to by saying "he who abides in Me, and I in him..." That word abide means to dwell, to remain, to live in, to stay, to rest in. And not only are we to abide in Him, but Christ Himself--the King of Kings, Immanuel (God with us)--abides in us as well. There is to be no separation, no departing one from the other. And when that is the case, Jesus says we "bring forth much fruit."

But after that comes the humbling, wondrous truth "for without Me you can do nothing." At first glance, that may seem pretty obvious and maybe even somewhat tame; without God enabling us, we can't do anything. But take a closer look, and you notice that word without is depicting a situation exactly the opposite of the abiding life we just saw in the first half of the verse. The opposite of within is without. Abiding in--dwelling inside, remaining joined to--and being without--outside, separate from. And how about the word can? It describes ability, strength, permission, etc. And do? Brings to mind James 1:22 ("Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only...") doesn't it? But the word that has struck me the hardest as of late has been that last one: nothing.

nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Not even a little. The word nothing there is literally translated from two Greek words, both of which mean "none, nothing." So it's sort of like saying, "Apart from me you can do no nothing." It's a double negative, reinforcing the absoluteness of the statement, even if it doesn't make perfect sense in English to phrase it like that.

There is no thing--nothing whatsoever--that we can do apart from Christ.
Years back, whenever I would hear this verse, I would nod my head along and think, "Well, duh, without God holding everything together and giving us life we wouldn't even be able to survive or to breathe." But something deeper has begun to sink in for me...No matter how much I may seem to be doing--even good things--if I am not abiding in Christ and if He is not abiding in me, it is worthless. I can go out in my own strength day after day after day and put in long hours of hard work; I can smile and do the "right" thing as much as I want--but at the end of the day, without Him, it is all meaningless.

Sometimes it's easy to go through life in automatic and to make the best of the situations that come up by handling them the way I've been taught to or the way I'm used to dealing with stuff. But that's not what I'm called to. I'm called to a life filled to overflowing with the never-ending adventure of living with and for and in my King--of having Him living in and through me every moment of every day--of living and moving and having my being in Christ (Acts 17:28), constantly. I am called to a life surrendered to His will, His timing, His holy power. So are you.

But He doesn't want robots. God is perfectly able to reach every lost soul Himself and to get through to people without our help. But He has chosen to do a more glorious thing by allowing us to come alongside Him in His work to redeem this world. He has made a way where there was no way and pulled off the impossible by taking people who had turned from Him and by doing so earned death--and not only rescuing us, but filling us with Himself, His very Spirit--so that we may abide in Him and He in us, and so that through our frail lives His great glory can shine forth. What is impossible for man is not impossible for God. Just as we were utterly incapable of saving ourselves, we are entirely incapable of doing God's work apart from Him.

As long as we live off our own fuel and remain (abide) in our puny mindsets of what each day is supposed to look like and how our lives are supposed to play out, we will accomplish exactly nothing. We will not move forward; we will not spur others forward; we will be of no use to God or to anyone around us. The only way we can ever hope to be of true use to the Kingdom of God and the advancement of His plans for this world, is to be fully surrendered to and abiding in Him. He is the solution; we are not. We never have been, and we never will be. But He always has been, and ever will be. So may our lives be filled with more of Him. May we abide in Him, and He in us, that He may be glorified.

 He must increase; I must decrease.