Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 439
15:1-27
John
427
“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every
branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches
that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been
pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and
I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from
the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and
I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch
and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if
you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything
you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are
my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.
When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey
my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these
things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved
you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves,
because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends,
since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose
me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that
the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my
command: Love each other.
“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would
love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part
of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. Do
you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’
Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they
had listened to me, they would listen to you. They will do all this to you
because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me. They would
not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no
excuse for their sin. Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. If I hadn’t
done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they
would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they
still hate me and my Father. This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures:
‘They hated me without cause.’
“But I will send you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come
to you from the Father and will testify all about me. And you must also
