If the Bible is an answer key, then the Psalms don’t fit. But if the Bible is about leading us on a pilgrimage through faith and doubt and anger and gratitude, then the Psalms are our best bet.

Honest to God

And on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he tells his disciples — his friends — in the same way that God has loved me, so I love you. As God has chosen me for the purpose of healing and redeeming the world, so I am choosing you to go and do likewise. I am choosing you to heal and renew the world. As God has eklégomai’d me, so I eklégomai you.

Abide in Me

This verse isn’t just about Jesus and me. It’s also about Jesus and we. We are supposed to experience the same kind of love in our life with Christ that Jesus experiences with the Father. That’s amazing. But we don’t know what God’s love looks like, feels like, should be like. So we’re given each other - branches all around us, weaving around us, to reflect God’s love for us.

Abide in Me

And if we choose to just take and consume and be fed, but never offer to feed others — we’ll just end up rotting on that vine and never fulfill the purposes we were cultivated for.

Abide in Me

When Jesus says he is the “True Vine,” he is saying that he is and will do all that Israel and the rest of humanity could never be and could never do for itself. Jesus is doing for us what we could never do for ourselves. Jesus is saying, “I’ve got this,” which means you and I do not have to “got this.”

Abide in Me