Welcome to this Daily PBJ devotional. Read 2 Kings 25, Haggai 2, and John 15. This devotional is about John 15. I am the true vine, and my father is the keeper of the vineyard. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it even more fruitful. You are already cleaned because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you, Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself, Unless it remains in the vine, Neither can you bear fruit, unless you remain in me. I am the vine, and you are the branches. The one who remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, proving yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in His love. I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from my father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you, and I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. This is my command to you, love one another. If the world hates you, understand that it hated me first. If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. Instead, the world hates you because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. Remember the word that I spoke to you. No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you as well. If they kept my word, they will keep yours as well. But they will treat you like this because of my name, since they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father as well. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their law. They hated me without reason. when the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me, and you also must testify, because you have been with me from the beginning. This is God's word. The Bible could be a lot shorter than it is. God could have just started, say, with Exodus 20, the Ten Commandments, and continued until all of his law was given to us, and then kind of stopped there. And likewise, in the New Testament, God could have given us one of the four Gospels, and maybe, say, the book of Romans and or the book of Ephesians, and just stopped at that. In this imaginary situation, we wouldn't know anything about creation, the fall, the flood, Abraham and his family, and so on. We wouldn't know about the exodus from Egypt, where they left Egypt. We'd just have the law. Or we wouldn't know about the judges in Judges, or about Samuel, David, Solomon, and others. we would have a bunch of commandments from God with very little storyline and very little context. Likewise, if the New Testament were just one gospel and a couple of the epistles of Paul, we would know about Christ's life and his atonement, his resurrection and his ascension, and what it means to become a Christian and to follow him. but we would know very little about Christ's second coming and very little about Christ's coming kingdom and the new earth. So God gave us a lot more than just a bunch of commandments and a lot more than just the gospel message. He gave us many stories, much history, songs of praise and redemption as well as prophecies about the future. But why? Why did God give us all this information instead of just a bunch of commands? Well, Jesus answers that question here in John 15 when he said, I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. And that's verse 20 in the NIV. So the answer to the question, why did God give us all of this information in the Bible, is that God graciously chose not to treat us as slaves who only get commands. And that's what Jesus meant in verse 20 when he said, a servant does not know his master's business. The servant doesn't see the big picture. He just gets commands to do today and doesn't necessarily know or see how they fit together. But instead of treating us that way, God chose to reveal the grand story of Scripture because, by his grace, he bestows on us the privileges that a friend has. The privilege to know more about what God is doing and why God is doing it. In this specific context, here in John 15, this verse explains why Jesus spent three years teaching the disciples and the people. But if we zoom out and see his words as a principle that describes the usual ways of God, we can see that God gave us his word in story, covenants, commands, history, prophecy, and so on, to show us that big picture in which all of his actions and his commands fit together and make sense. In the larger context of John 15, Jesus and the disciples were walking to Gethsemane, where Christ would be betrayed and arrested. Then he would be tried, executed, and then rise again. And Jesus wanted the disciples, and through them, us, to know how all of this fit into the plan that God has been working on in human history for thousands of years. One of the great privileges of having this lengthy book that we call the Bible is that we can learn God's plan and understand God's character as we read and study the Bible. So rather than seeing the Bible as a long book that's hard to read, let's view it as a privilege. the voice of a friend who is communicated to us, a gift from God himself, who revealed his plan and himself to us in it. And let's use the word as God intended it, by reading it, studying it, meditating on what it says, and then walking faithfully in obedience until God brings the rest of the story, the next chapter, which is the return of Christ, into reality. If you found this devotional helpful, go to my website, dailypbj.com slash subscribe, and you can get a free email subscription there, just by entering your email address. Once you're subscribed, you'll receive an email from me every day containing a link to the scripture readings for that day, so you can be in God's Word, reading God's Word every day, cued by the email. And the same email will give you these devotionals in audio, video, and transcript form, and you can just pick one of them, and I can help you apply what you've read for your own Christian growth. This is completely free, and you can unsubscribe at any time, so there's no risk. Give it a try. Go to dailypbj.com slash subscribe. And maybe you could help me financially by becoming one of my monthly supporters. If so, please go to dailypbj.com slash support for more information about that. And please share this with someone else who might be encouraged to know how much God has given to us in his word. And I'll see you next time. May God bless you. Hope you have a great day today.