Closeness

It is ironic how much we can learn from things we believe to already understand fully. Last night I went through a passage of John that I had read on Monday night as well, and thought it was rather needless to read it again. Fortunately what came from it was even more relevant than the first read.

I have always approached holiness in terms of an absence of sin. I thought that to become a “better Christian”, that I should simply get rid of sin. This sounds easy enough, but it is altogether rather vain…at least in my previous attempts. For example, I would always say “Man I need to stop swearing.” From there anytime I would get to the point of swearing and caught myself before the words left my lips, I felt proud to have “conquered” the slipping of my words. I found triumph in the elimination of one swear word at one moment. The issue of swearing had not been fixed, but for that one moment I felt accomplished. But when ten minutes later I got even more pissed off and actually let an f-word come out of my mouth, it made my guilt feel that much heavier.

But then last night I was reading John 15 where it talks about bearing fruit, and one of the guys I was discussing the passage with came up with a great insight: fruit is a bi-product. All this time I had thought of fruit in terms of something I created, and something that I was successful in doing. When fruit is now a bi-product, the issue no longer is simply the elimination of sin, but the closeness to God. The relative distance/closeness between you and God will be exemplified through the fruit produced. The focus is not the fruit produced, but the closeness to God that in and of itself produces fruit. Become closer to God and good fruit will follow suit. The way I wrote down last night was: “I don’t question whether or not I have an arm. I worry about my health. My health renders how my arm is doing. Without good health, the healthiness of my arm is in jeopardy.” If I am not close to God, then no fruit will be produced. This is an extension of my last blog discussing how good actions and love do not come solely from Christians. Fruit is not simply love/good actions. Anyone is capable of those. But only those that are close to God will produce fruit.