Nothing

Whenever you are confronted with an opponent. Conquer him with love. – Mahatma Gandhi

Recently I wrote about abiding or clinging to the vine of life- Jesus. John 15:5 says, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Other versions say that you cannot produce or yield anything; you can do nothing at all. We must abide, cling to, live in, and dwell in the vine or the Lord. He is our source of power and life. We cannot do anything on our own. John said, “Remain in me.” Do you want to bear fruit?  I suspect you do, but you can’t on your own. Bible teacher Beth Moore said you can do stuff, but not the “things you cannot do.”  You cannot do miracles or supernatural things. These are the things God created you to do through Him.

Elsewhere in Scripture it says that God created you and me to love. This is hard for me. “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…we love because He first loved us” (1John 4:11,19). Why did I move from bearing fruit to loving? Because “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is a key of life. Agape love is the love of God that is supernatural, selfless and from God, impossible to give without His power and love within us. The love chapter that many people can find if they have attended a wedding recently, is about love. It speaks about being a clanging cymbal without love. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). There it is again, “nothing.”  Paul is saying that our motivation must be the love of God in us in all things we do. So, whatever we desire or try to achieve, we must rely on God and His love to achieve it. Apart from Him we can do nothing. He will provide for us to bring about reconciliation, or other God given missions. But we must trust in God to do it.

Gandhi’s quote above is that love is a tool or better yet a weapon.  As Ephesians 6 tells us, we must put on the full armor of God, “And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). This is Spirit power, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). If we take and use this power in love we can do it. “For with God nothing will be impossible” (Luke 1:37). 

“Fear the Lord, you His holy people, for those who fear Him lack nothing” (Psalm 34:9). Without Him we can do nothing, but if we revere Him all things are possible and we will have all we need.