Experiencing God - Grafted to Christ 105

"As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me, with me in Him, bears fruit in plenty.  For cut off from me, you can do nothing."
Gospel of John

The other day when my wife and I visited a local building supply store, we noticed a very unusual thing.  They had their trees on sale, and we enjoy looking at all their new varieties.  One of them was an apple tree that could produce five different varieties of apples.  If you looked closely at the tree, you could see where different branches had been grafted carefully into the main apple tree trunk that held the roots.  And amazingly enough, each branch would produce its own variety of apple.  We noticed that for one branch, the graft did not take properly. Therefore this branch did not look very healthy.  In fact, it was probably dead.  It is obvious this this branch would never produce its designated variety of apple.  It really was unable to serve its intended purpose.

If we can look at this in relation to the Gospel of John, then it gives us an understanding of what Jesus means.

"As a branch cannot bear fruit all by itself, but must remain part of the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  Whoever remains in me, with me in Him, bears fruit in plenty.  For cut off from me, you can do nothing".

So how can we get grafted into Christ?  What does He mean by this?  We know that the branch from the apple tree was grafted into the physical trunk.  But we cannot be grafted into the physical Jesus.  His physical form is not available to us, even it were possible.  So we are speaking of a spiritual reality.  We are speaking of being grafted to Jesus through his Spirit of love. 

This Spirit of love of which Jesus is the source begins with the Father's love for Jesus which moves to Jesus' love for His disciples, which is reciprocated in the disciples' loving obedience to Jesus that radiates outwards by their love for others.  When this connection is not there, the person is no disciple at all.  But when this Spirit of love does flow, it will be a source of transformation for all who experience it.  This Spirit of love with Jesus is transformative and limitless because it's a love that is unconditional. 

How can you tell when you are connected to this stream of love that comes from Christ?  It's the same as with the apple tree.  You can tell that the graft is good if the appropriate fruit is produced.  By their fruit you shall know them.

Often, we like to try to judge who belongs to this Spirit of love by looking at the rules they are following - are they  circumcised, do they belong to the right church or group, do they follow the right faith practice, etc. Well, I believe God may see things differently from those who insist on following self-made rules as a test of faith.   Rules are good in that they bring order in our lives. But if the Macintosh branch produces Macintosh apples, then I think it is fair to say that the branch is properly grafted to the tree. If our love produces the proper fruit, then I think it is fair to say that we are properly grafted to Christ.  Just as a healthy branch is nourished through the roots and trunk of a healthy tree, so too do we receive the vital nourishment for our spiritual lives if we are grafted to Christ.  The fruit that is produced by this grafting will be evident.