“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
But we are expected to put forth our best effort at all times.
Here is the conundrum that so many who are born-again fall prey to, we know that we can do nothing of ourselves that will be profitable for the Kingdom of the Everlasting God, but we are expected to do all we do for His glory, to keep every thought captive for Christ, to reveal to all we meet the reason for our faith. All these require personal exertion, personal effort, and we will be held accountable for the amount of, and the reason for, our efforts.
Yet we can do nothing without Him.
I believe the key, if you will, is submission to the will of God, allowing His will to override our own will, but not even that is a decent explanation, for if all we did was only for the glory of God by His will, then how could we be held accountable? We would be no less than, in a way, simply soldiers obeying orders without questioning our commander, and that fits too closely to Luke 17:10.
“So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”
Disobeying or obeying may be, so to speak, a better key to understanding all this, for God looks on the heart, while a commanding officer simply notices whether or not his commands were obeyed or not.
The Romanist and other works-based religious organizations may offer us an analogy here, with their traditions in this sense they fulfill Matthew 6:7.
“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.”
They are indeed obeying, but that obedience is, or has become, a routine with little love within it. Many of the Evangelical churches have fallen into the same trap, but with this verse instead.
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” (Heb. 10:25)
“For without me ye can do nothing” has very little, if anything to do with getting to church on time, with being able to repeat the proper phrases or sing the songs. It has to do with matters of the heart and the reasons behind what we do, with the knowledge that our lives are to be lived for His glory.
Only those works done through us by the Holy Spirit that we willingly submit ourselves to are profitable, because without the Holy Spirit we could not do them and know that they are done for His glory, thus making Isaiah 64:6 a more visible truth to us.
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”
In perhaps the simplest way I can phrase it my friends, our efforts in denying ourselves by our own free will to submit our will to the will of the Father is how we can do all things through Christ. Without this, “Thy will be done” is nothing less or more than us doing what that soldier does, just what he has been commanded to do solely, and only, because he was commanded to.
And that servant, even when he has performed every task perfectly, is unprofitable.
It is indeed love, but it is more than that, it is actions done solely because of love.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
Only faith can produce this love, only the Holy Spirit can cause us to understand it, as much as our finite minds can comprehend the infinite, Sovereign Lord of all creation who gave Himself for us.
If we could understand the love that obeyed the commandment to go to that cross, while at the same time saying, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:39), then not only would both you and I better understand what has been attempted to be revealed here, but the ultimate, unquestioning truth of Philippians 1:21.
“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
