Jesus clearly told us we can do nothing apart from Him. In spite of this, we often try to accomplish things in our own strength. So He lets us experience our weakness to help us truly depend on Him for all things. This is the final part of our short series, "Absolute Surrender."

Host: Kathy, we want to continue in our discussions in Absolute Surrender and the chapter today is entitled, “Ye Are the Branches.” Andrew Murray opened this chapter with John 15 beginning in verse 4. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5, NKJV) He addresses this chapter to Christian workers, but I think you rightfully pointed out as we were talking before this recording that this is just a universal truth to believers.

Kathy: Yeah, it is. What else can be said? What we're talking about is absolute dependence on the root. Jesus is our vine, and if we are connected to Him and dependent upon Him, we will bear much fruit. Not only will we bear much fruit, but we will have a life of peace and rest, It's a joy to depend on the Lord. It takes a long time for some of us to get that, but it is a joy to be dependent upon Jesus Christ.

Host: You know, when we read here that He is the vine and we're branches, our understanding of that or maybe I should say our walking out of that tends to be so superficial. It almost has been dwindled down to nothing more than, “Yeah, I believe Jesus exists,” and then we go on with our life. What does it mean to be absolutely dependent on Him? How has that become real in your life?

Kathy: Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.” (John 15:5b, NKJV) But “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13, NKJV) Those two verses mean so much to me. And I don't know this fully, but I'm learning that dependence comes from brokenness through failure and through much, much weakness. I'm dependent on the vine to live the Christian life, literally. I can't do this. I don't have what it takes to be a Christian. Obviously, we have our part to play, but I am connected to the vine and that is where my life is coming from.

Host: You know, the problem is that when we hear, “Apart from Me you can do nothing,” we don't believe that.

Kathy: No, we don't believe that because we think we can do plenty. I remember back in the early days of the Residential Program seeing this whole teaching of being weak and humble get some of the men in the program very upset because they felt like, “God doesn't want me to be weak.” That is very much what's in all of us. We don't want to admit we are weak. We don’t want to be humble. We don't want to have to lose ourselves.

Host: Right. Well, there's a reason why the Scripture says, “Crucify yourself daily.” That means that self is utterly destroyed.

Kathy: Yeah, we don't want that. We want Jesus to be for us. We want His seal of approval on everything we put our hand to. But man, you start talking about death to self and yeah, we don't like that.

Host: Yeah, Andrew Murray finished on this point of absolute dependence. He wrote, “If I am something, then God is not everything; but when I become nothing, God can become all.” You know, we sometimes sing the song, “Jesus My All in All.” But man, there really is a lack of that being real for us. And God knows that.
         He wants to be our all in all. He doesn't tell us to crucify the flesh just because He wants us to go through pain and suffering. He really wants to be our all in all, but we can't have that unless we can begin to understand what this first point is, absolute dependence on Him. And you've said it already, it just requires brokenness and humility.

Kathy: Yeah. God is always so amazingly patient. He’s always ushering us toward that life with Him and the problem is we're so reluctant and so resistant and don't really believe that God is asking that much of us. So, He just has to keep nudging and wooing and calling and correcting and disciplining.

Host: And He's so faithful to do that.

Kathy: Yeah. I love him for it.

Host: Murray also talks about the life of the branch here. He says, it is a life of deep restfulness. He wrote, “No one who learns to rest upon the living Christ can become slothful, for the closer your contact with Christ the more of the Spirit of His zeal and love will be borne up in you.” When we think of the restfulness of the life of a Christian it is a danger that we can think, “Oh well, now I can be slothful. Now I can lay back. Now I don't have to keep fighting.” But that’s not true. The life of the branches is a life of work. There's stuff that must be going on in the branch for there to be fruit.

Kathy: Well, the restfulness I think comes from knowing that you're connected to the vine and that the vine is feeding you the life, but that life is quickening you. It's putting you to life. It's not putting you to sleep.

Host: Yeah. You and I are both into gardening. As gardeners, we love spring because we watch the rose bushes, we watch the fruit trees and watch the buds start to pop out. Then we really get excited when the leaves start to pop out. They're not being slothful.

Kathy: Yeah, and they're not sleeping either.

Host: Lots of stuff going on there.

Kathy: That's right. Producing fruit.

Host: Yeah. And that's his Third Point. In the life of the branch, if there's life in it, there ought to be much fruitfulness.

Kathy: Yeah. There’s restfulness because you're connected to the vine, but there's also fruitfulness because you're connected to the vine. You can't have fruit apart from Him. That's what Jesus was saying, “Apart from me. You can't do anything.” In other words, He was saying, “What are you doing out there? That's not me working in you.”

Host: Yeah. And He's not talking about work. Talk about that because I know the Lord has really made that real to you over the years. There’s a difference between work and fruitfulness. Most people in ministry in America need to hear this.

Kathy: Let me just say it this way, when I am connected to the vine, I love people. I love laying my life down. I don't see what I'm losing. I don't see any sacrifice. I don't see that something's being taken from me.

Host: It's not a drudgery.

Kathy: No. But when I am working and it's me working, I get burnt out. I'm tired. I want some R&R. Give me a nice long vacation somewhere. That is the mantra going on inside the heart and the mind of somebody who is working in themselves, doing their own thing and separated at some level from that fruitfulness that comes from being connected to the vine.

Host: Yeah. And can I just say that that's what we're prone to do. There is a need for us to constantly be looking at our life and our work and evaluating if it’s us or if it’s the Lord. If it's me, I need to repent of that.

Kathy: Yeah. The other thing is that men and women are different. Men tend to be workaholics, and they derive their fulfillment from their occupation. God created men that way, but that can be really misconstrued and taken to an extreme and an excuse to be ambitious. And it's easy to justify that as, “I'm serving the Lord. This is for God.” Well, I think that the Lord would probably say to us in that case, “Come and be Mary first and then you can go do the Martha thing. But right now, you need to be like Mary.” And men and women alike don’t like being Mary. We don't want to sit at the feet of Jesus. We find it boring.

Host: Well, this really brings us to Andrew Murray's fourth point here, that the life of the believer involves close communion with Jesus. The branch has to be connected to the vine for the sap to be able to run from the vine into the branch with the resulting fruit we talked about. Well, it's the same with our spiritual life.

Kathy: Yeah, nothing of any real value is going to happen apart from that. And before we have the motivation to serve and be fruitful, there has to be a desire and a hunger to be connected to Him. Let Him decide what ministry will be for. Let Him decide what your actual fruitfulness in life will be. Being joined to Christ is more than just a nice Bible verse we read. It is everything and whatever comes out of our lives, it's up to Him. Let Him make the decisions, but nothing is going to happen outside of that connection.

Host: Yeah. Well, his final point in this chapter is in fact the title of the book, Absolute Surrender. And he basically said what you just said. He said, “My relationship is just this: I am utterly given up to the vine, and the vine can give me as much or as little sap as it chooses. Here I am at its disposal and the vine can do with me what it likes.” What a blessed place to be.

Kathy: Amen. It is. That is rest and that is peace.