Without Him, we can do Nothing

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  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 15:4-5 

“In his book “The Latent Power of the Soul’ Nee quotes G.H. Pember who quotes “Wild’s Spiritual Dynamics.” “‘An adept can consciously see the minds of others. He can act by his soul force on external spirits, he can accelerate the growth of plants and quench fire. …subdue ferocious wild beasts .” ” He can send his soul at a distance, and there not only read the thoughts of others, but speak to and touch those distant objects…”

While none of us ponder the possibilities of Astral travel, creating the likeness of physical objects, or calling objects to come to ourselves, we nevertheless, perform many things in our day to day. Which of these things can we not do without Him?

Truth be told, we can do many “things” without Him, but which of our many things are producing fruit?

Friends, fruit bearing remains the sole objective of the vine, and so, abiding in the vine stands out, our sole objective. A simple branch connected to the mother vine pictures it, but what does it look like for the soul? The Spirit? A union?

Jesse Penn Lewis remarks, ” This union with the arisen and ascended Lord can be only in spirit, and experimentally realized as the spirit of the believer is separated from its enwrapping of the soul.” She lists these: Soulish affections, soulish self-interest, grasping at earthly things, and soulish self -love, as some soul’s enwrapping, and so hindering our fruit-bearing.

So, when Jesus spoke of doing nothing without Him, He obviously meant things of the spirit, for soul-founded activity counts for nothing in the kingdom of God’s dear Son, because soul in itself can only produce dead works. For these “dead works” Christ shed His blood, cleansing their impact on our conscience, leaving service to the living God our gain.

Paul expressed despair in Romans 7, “O Wretched man am I, who shall deliver me from this body of death?” The answer came, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Beloved, what a shift of thinking came over Paul, “with the mind I serve the law of God, and with the flesh, the law of sin. What did he mean? Simply this:

Through the renewing of the mind at his new-birth experience, Paul could view life from the perspective of the new creation, all of which was produced in him by God Himself, and so freeing him from his dominating soul. “They that are in Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.” The source of Paul’s life became the Holy Spirit’s guiding him into all truth, and accessed by Paul in his new-found Human spirit.

Paul goes on to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

Do you see how our shame and guilt have caused us a strict abiding in the fleshly soul, and hindered our abiding in the true vine?

In closing Nee in his book, “The Latent Power of the soul ” strictly forbids soul -power use. He quotes Penn Lewis again, “Soul force versus Spirit force is the battleground today. The body of Christ is by the energy of the Spirit, advancing heavenward. The atmosphere of the world is thickening with psychic currents behind which are masked the aerial foes.” “the only safety for the child of God is an experimental knowledge of the life in union with Christ… The blood of Christ for cleansing, the cross of Christ for identification in death, the power of the risen Lord…”

In His Vine -branch story in John 15, Jesus told us, “now are ye clean through the Word that I have spoken.” Never digress to that other world. You are brand new. Love ya