In John 15:5 Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.”
We need to grow and mature to become a branch strong enough to produce fruit and hold it in place to ripen and be available for food. Now, the life of a Christian can be a long one, or a short one, but no matter, we are still grafted into him, and as such, our time here is in Jesus and he in us.
So, in Jesus, as a Christian, do you have a B.C./A.D. kind of life?
If you don’t know or remember what that is, as the term is very seldom used these days, because a lot of people are trying to avoid the name of Jesus, admitting he is the son of God, what A.D. and B.C. mean, here is a shortened version of it.
A.D. stands for anno domini, Latin for “in the year of our Lord,” and specifically refers to the birth of Jesus Christ. “B.C.” stands for “before Christ.” The B.C. years before Christ was born are counted backwards starting with 1, and the years after his birth are counted forward.
In the early Middle Ages, there was a problem when to celebrate Easter. In A.D. 325, they decided it would fall on the first Sunday of the full moon following the spring equinox. But then in A.D. 525 a monk, Dionysius Exiguus created the A.D. system around Jesus Christ. And it began to take hold from there until now.
And isn’t it a parallel to what our lives as Christians should be?
What we were before Christ Jesus, was a sinner. Then we accepted Christ and became grafted into his everlasting vine. This is so exciting!
Jesus is said to have lived about 33 1/2 years. His first words written were to his mother, Mary. He said, “Why were you looking for me? (They thought he got lost coming back from a trip to Jerusalem.) Didn’t you know I must be about my Father’s business?”
From the time he was 30 years old to when he was 33 1/2, he began to preach, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” He often said during this time, “Of myself I do nothing, but what I hear and see of my Father, I do.” Meaning, he Jesus, did not live for himself anymore, but he lived to be obedient to his Father, God. Then Jesus died and came back alive forever more.
After we accept Christ and are grafted in to the vine, we should live in anno domini, in the year of our Lord, A.D, which is the rest of our lives and then forever in eternity. After accepting his salvation, we begin to pick up our cross, die to ourselves, causing a B.C. in our lives; a time when time counts backwards; our dark, sinful past.
In anno domini, the year of our Lord, A.D., we begin to leave our sinful nature behind, be disciplined away from this nature, to become strong in Christ as a branch of the Jesus-vine, where our Father God is the gardener, and owner of the garden, to be a strong, fruit bearing branch! How exciting is that?!
If we don’t have a real-time, life-time B.C., before Christ, in our lives we may find ourselves fulfilling the latter part of that scripture: John 15:6. “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned.
We cannot willfully continue on in our sinful nature and think we are a branch of the Jesus-vine. We must, after we confess Jesus as our savior, to begin to live as Jesus did: Of myself I do nothing. I only do what the Father tells me.
Now we must do what Jesus tells us, live in accord with Holy Spirit, and become that branch that bears his kind of fruit; love, joy, peace, patience, and self-control. And we must walk forward in anno domini, the year of our Lord (A space of time forward that is the rest of our lives.)
We must put away the works of the flesh: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, emulations, wrath, strife, sedition, heresies, envying, murders, drunkenness, revelings… These type of things, works, we should immediately be putting them in the B.C., behind that line that separates our lives into these two, B.C./A.D., parts of our lives.
Thank you for reading. I hope this helps put a strong line in your lives as a growing Christian to understand how to divide your thoughts and actions into a B.C./A.D. life in Christ Jesus, the vine from which you are a growing branch.
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Love to all!
Inspiration from the homestead
From Romance & The Homestead, Della
Author Della M Strickland 