Daily Verse
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Discipleship
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Wednesday's Reflection
John 15:8 — Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Andrew Murray was a South African pastor in the nineteenth century who spent his life writing about what it means to truly abide in Christ. He wrote over two hundred books — on prayer, on humility, on the Holy Spirit, on waiting on God. But his writing did not come from an easy life. In 1879, while on a preaching tour, he completely lost his voice. He was silent for two years. Doctors told him his preaching days were over. During those two years he wrote some of his most powerful books. He described the silence not as punishment but as school — God teaching him that fruit-bearing is not about activity but about connection.
Jesus says in John 15 that the branch does not produce fruit by trying harder. It produces fruit by staying attached to the vine. A branch that is cut off can make no effort that will produce fruit. The connection is everything. Murray understood this experientially — stripped of his voice and his platform, he discovered that his relationship with Christ was the one thing that could not be taken. And from that place of enforced stillness, the fruit came in the form of books that are still feeding people a hundred and fifty years later.
The disciple who is always busy, always producing, always doing — but who has let the connection with Christ grow thin — will eventually find that the busyness is producing noise but not fruit. The one who abides, who stays connected through prayer and the Word and surrender, will find that fruit comes almost without their understanding how. That is the paradox of discipleship. The more fully we give up control and stay attached to the vine, the more the Father is glorified in what grows from our lives.
Prayer: Lord, teach us to abide — to stay connected to You when the temptation is to rush out and produce things in our own strength. May our fruit come from the vine, not from our own effort. Amen.