Jesus as the True vine

Christian Religious Studies SSS 1 First Term

Week 2

Topic: Jesus as the true vine

Performance objectives

The student should be able to:   

1. Discuss on the value of bread and water

Content      

Jesus as the true vine (John 15:1-7)

Jesus referred to himself as the true vine and his father as the vine dresser. Every branch of Jesus that does not bear fruit, his father takes away and every branch that bears fruit, He keeps and grooms, that it may bear more fruit. A branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine. Jesus is the vine and the Christians are the branches. Christians must abide in Jesus in order to be fruitful. Any man that fails to abide in Jesus will be cast-off to wither and be burnt. He stated further that if they abide by his words and his words abide in them, they would ask whatever they like and it would be done for them.

Significance of Jesus as the true vine

1. The vine is the symbol of the relationship between Christ and believers.

2. Christians are called to be fruitful

3. God’s word enables us to abide in Him.

Jesus as the living water (John 4:7-15)

As Jesus was waiting for his disciples who went out to buy food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from one of Jacobs’ wells. Jesus was thirsty, so, he demanded water from the woman. She refused on the ground that Jews and Samaritans have no dealings. Jesus answered and said:

“ If you know the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10), the woman was amazed how Jesus could give her water when he had no vessel for drawing water from the well. The woman queried whether Jesus was greater than Jacob who gave them the well and drank from it with his children and cattle. In response, Jesus declared: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again but whoever drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst, the water I shall give him will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman then requested for the living water so that she might not thirst again nor come to draw water.

Jesus as the living bread (John 6:1-41)

When the multitude that came to Jesus had been fed, he left for the other side of the sea. People sought for him and went to him on a boat. Jesus said they were looking for him in order to be fed and because if the signs they had seen. He encouraged them to seek for the word of life which leads to eternal life. Such food, he said, could only come from the son of man who has the power to give. The people asked him what they would do as proof that they were doing the work of God. Jesus told them to believe in him who was sent by God, they requested for a sign to make them believe that truly he was sent by God; they went further that their forefathers ate manna in the wilderness which was sent down from heaven. Jesus said that manna was sent as a temporary relief from physical hunger, God has sent down living bread which gives life to the world. The people then demanded for the bread of life which he said anyone who eats would no longer be hungry. Jesus then told them that he is the bread of life, anyone who eats his flesh and drinks his blood will live forever. Yet, they did not believe Jesus despite the fact that they had seen him. He said that none of those that have been given to him by his father would be cast out and that he had come from heaven to do God’s will.

Moral lesson

1. We should depend on Jesus as our source of life.

2. Christians should not base their belief on signs and wonders.