In our Wednesday prayer meetings, we’ve just stepped into a new series that will carry us to the end of the year—“Secrets of the Vine” from John 15. And as our Pentecost Evangelistic Series, “New Beginnings,” comes to a close, there’s a question that lingers in the air: Now that God has given us a new beginning… how do we live it out?
The answer is simple—and yet it changes everything.
Abide.
Jesus didn’t say, “Go make something of yourself.” He said, “Abide in Me.” Stay close. Stay rooted. Stay connected. Because apart from Him, we can do nothing.
You see, this life of faith was never meant to be about simply holding on until heaven. It was meant to be about bearing fruit—the kind that makes heaven visible on earth.
Faithfulness and fruitfulness are not two separate things; they are one and the same.
You cannot truly be faithful without being fruitful.
You cannot truly be abiding if there’s no evidence of His life flowing through you.
Think about Rahab. She was given a promise—a scarlet cord to hang from her window—and she believed it. But her belief didn’t end with a symbol. She brought her family into the house and waited for the rescue she’d been promised. She didn’t just hang the cord; she filled the house. Her faith wasn’t silent—it was fruitful.
That’s the difference between surviving and abiding. Surviving says, “I’ll stay safe and hold on till it’s over.” Abiding says, “I’ll open my doors, live my faith out loud, and bring others into this place of safety with me.”
We as believers often hang our “scarlet cords”—we keep the Sabbath, follow the commandments, eat right, and live right—but if our lives never draw others closer to Christ, we’ve missed the very heartbeat of the Vine. Because the branch doesn’t exist for itself. It exists to bear fruit that glorifies the Vinedresser.
And the fruit always tells the truth about the tree.
When our fruit is full of love, joy, and grace, the world tastes and sees that God is good. But when it’s empty, bitter, or fake, the world doesn’t just question us—it questions the God we claim to serve.
So as we journey through this new series, may this be our prayer: that our faith would not grow stale or stagnant, that our branches would not hang bare, but that the life of the Vine would pulse through us—making us a people both faithful and fruitful, so that when the Groom returns, He finds a Bride that didn’t just wait…; but abided, obeyed, and bore fruit that brought glory to the Vinedresser.
May God bless you.
Pastor Ben