A Faith Worth Following
Are You Serious About Being a Disciple?
There is a question worth sitting with for a moment, one that has the potential to cut through the noise of everyday life and land somewhere deep: Does the next generation know that we are serious about our faith?
It is a question that does not carry condemnation, but it does carry weight. Because whether we realize it or not, what we take seriously gets noticed. Children absorb the frustrations of their parents. Young people pick up the convictions, the habits, the passions of those around them. If we cheer loudly for a sports team, those nearby will cheer too. If we carry a strong opinion about something, those watching us will carry it as well, often without fully understanding why. The things we treat as important become important to those who look up to us.
So the natural follow-up question is this: are we displaying a faith that is worth following?
The Vine and the Branch
In John 15, Jesus offers one of the most vivid and instructive pictures of what it means to follow him. He describes himself as the true vine, God the Father as the gardener, and his followers as the branches. The image is earthy and practical, drawn from the agricultural world that his listeners knew well. And the message embedded in it is both simple and profound.
A branch has one great purpose: to bear fruit. If it cannot do that, it serves no purpose. And a branch can only bear fruit if it remains connected to the vine. Cut off from the source, it withers. It dries up. It produces nothing.
This is what Jesus means when he calls his followers to abide in him. To abide is not a passive word. It means to remain, to stay connected, to draw life continuously from the source. In practical terms, abiding looks like time spent in prayer, in scripture, in fellowship with other believers, and in a growing awareness of how our thinking is being shaped less by ourselves and more by Christ.
There is a subtle but important distinction worth noting here. A branch does not live its life for the vine. Rather, it simply lets the life of the vine flow through it. This changes the way we pray. Instead of asking God to help us live our lives for him, the better prayer becomes: Lord, live your life through me. Through my work, my relationships, my habits, my family. Live your life through me. It is an invitation for Christ to move through every corner of our existence, not just the parts we have designated as spiritual.
Three Gauges Worth Checking
Think of your spiritual life as a dashboard with gauges. These gauges do not exist to make us feel guilty. They exist because something could go wrong, and it helps to know where things stand.
The first gauge is patience. Growth takes time. There is no fast pass for spiritual maturity. We live in a world that has conditioned us to expect speed, same-day delivery, instant results. But the seasons of perseverance cannot be skipped. As Paul writes in Romans 5, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. The difficult seasons are not interruptions to our growth. They are the very means by which it happens. If the patience gauge is running low, the answer is not a shortcut. It is the slow, faithful practice of endurance.
The second gauge is depth. Every plant depends on the depth of its root system. Roots anchor, absorb, store, and transport. Without depth, a plant cannot thrive. One of the greatest hindrances to deep roots in our spiritual lives is the endless pull of options. We are drawn toward what is flashy, or we settle for what is cheap. We pick and choose what we want to follow and leave the rest. But Psalm 92 offers a striking image of what it looks like to be planted in the house of the Lord. The righteous are compared to palm trees and cedars, trees that flourish, that bear fruit even in old age, that remain fresh and green. The reason? Their roots are tapped directly into the living water of God's presence. The invitation is to stop searching elsewhere for meaning and to let our roots go deep where we are planted.
The third gauge is community. Believers are designed to grow together. The body of Christ exists because we need one another. This is not optional for the fully devoted follower of Jesus. It is part of what it means to abide.
The Evidence of Abiding
How do we know if we are truly abiding in Christ? There are two unmistakable signs.
The first is pruning. Every believer who is genuinely connected to the vine will experience it. God does not prune us out of anger. He prunes us because he loves us too much to leave us where we are. Sometimes the pruning removes obvious sin, the dead wood that breeds disease. But sometimes it removes things that seemed good, things we were comfortable with, because something better is waiting on the other side. The closest God is ever to us may be in those moments when he is cutting something away. The question is whether we will resist or surrender.
The second sign is fruit. When we abide in Christ, fruit appears. Not just the fruit of the Spirit, though that is certainly part of it, but fruit that takes many forms: lives drawn toward Christ, growth in holiness, generosity, service, gratitude, and praise. And unlike the seasonal fruit of a garden, this fruit does not expire. It lasts. It is life-giving and eternal. No one who abides in Christ ever reaches a point where they have nothing left to offer.
A Faith Worth Following
The next generation is watching. Not just our children, but those around us who are looking for something real, something worth believing in, something worth building a life around. The call to be a disciple of Jesus has never been a casual one. It is a lifelong journey of abiding, of being pruned, of bearing fruit, of letting the life of the vine flow through the branch.
The question remains. Are we serious about it?
There is a question worth sitting with for a moment, one that has the potential to cut through the noise of everyday life and land somewhere deep: Does the next generation know that we are serious about our faith?
It is a question that does not carry condemnation, but it does carry weight. Because whether we realize it or not, what we take seriously gets noticed. Children absorb the frustrations of their parents. Young people pick up the convictions, the habits, the passions of those around them. If we cheer loudly for a sports team, those nearby will cheer too. If we carry a strong opinion about something, those watching us will carry it as well, often without fully understanding why. The things we treat as important become important to those who look up to us.
So the natural follow-up question is this: are we displaying a faith that is worth following?
The Vine and the Branch
In John 15, Jesus offers one of the most vivid and instructive pictures of what it means to follow him. He describes himself as the true vine, God the Father as the gardener, and his followers as the branches. The image is earthy and practical, drawn from the agricultural world that his listeners knew well. And the message embedded in it is both simple and profound.
A branch has one great purpose: to bear fruit. If it cannot do that, it serves no purpose. And a branch can only bear fruit if it remains connected to the vine. Cut off from the source, it withers. It dries up. It produces nothing.
This is what Jesus means when he calls his followers to abide in him. To abide is not a passive word. It means to remain, to stay connected, to draw life continuously from the source. In practical terms, abiding looks like time spent in prayer, in scripture, in fellowship with other believers, and in a growing awareness of how our thinking is being shaped less by ourselves and more by Christ.
There is a subtle but important distinction worth noting here. A branch does not live its life for the vine. Rather, it simply lets the life of the vine flow through it. This changes the way we pray. Instead of asking God to help us live our lives for him, the better prayer becomes: Lord, live your life through me. Through my work, my relationships, my habits, my family. Live your life through me. It is an invitation for Christ to move through every corner of our existence, not just the parts we have designated as spiritual.
Three Gauges Worth Checking
Think of your spiritual life as a dashboard with gauges. These gauges do not exist to make us feel guilty. They exist because something could go wrong, and it helps to know where things stand.
The first gauge is patience. Growth takes time. There is no fast pass for spiritual maturity. We live in a world that has conditioned us to expect speed, same-day delivery, instant results. But the seasons of perseverance cannot be skipped. As Paul writes in Romans 5, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. The difficult seasons are not interruptions to our growth. They are the very means by which it happens. If the patience gauge is running low, the answer is not a shortcut. It is the slow, faithful practice of endurance.
The second gauge is depth. Every plant depends on the depth of its root system. Roots anchor, absorb, store, and transport. Without depth, a plant cannot thrive. One of the greatest hindrances to deep roots in our spiritual lives is the endless pull of options. We are drawn toward what is flashy, or we settle for what is cheap. We pick and choose what we want to follow and leave the rest. But Psalm 92 offers a striking image of what it looks like to be planted in the house of the Lord. The righteous are compared to palm trees and cedars, trees that flourish, that bear fruit even in old age, that remain fresh and green. The reason? Their roots are tapped directly into the living water of God's presence. The invitation is to stop searching elsewhere for meaning and to let our roots go deep where we are planted.
The third gauge is community. Believers are designed to grow together. The body of Christ exists because we need one another. This is not optional for the fully devoted follower of Jesus. It is part of what it means to abide.
The Evidence of Abiding
How do we know if we are truly abiding in Christ? There are two unmistakable signs.
The first is pruning. Every believer who is genuinely connected to the vine will experience it. God does not prune us out of anger. He prunes us because he loves us too much to leave us where we are. Sometimes the pruning removes obvious sin, the dead wood that breeds disease. But sometimes it removes things that seemed good, things we were comfortable with, because something better is waiting on the other side. The closest God is ever to us may be in those moments when he is cutting something away. The question is whether we will resist or surrender.
The second sign is fruit. When we abide in Christ, fruit appears. Not just the fruit of the Spirit, though that is certainly part of it, but fruit that takes many forms: lives drawn toward Christ, growth in holiness, generosity, service, gratitude, and praise. And unlike the seasonal fruit of a garden, this fruit does not expire. It lasts. It is life-giving and eternal. No one who abides in Christ ever reaches a point where they have nothing left to offer.
A Faith Worth Following
The next generation is watching. Not just our children, but those around us who are looking for something real, something worth believing in, something worth building a life around. The call to be a disciple of Jesus has never been a casual one. It is a lifelong journey of abiding, of being pruned, of bearing fruit, of letting the life of the vine flow through the branch.
The question remains. Are we serious about it?
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