In John, Chapter 15, Jesus gives us a beautiful parable of Himself as a vine; His Father as the husbandman; and us, as branches of the vine. All have a single goal: fruit.
In the natural sense, fruit has two basic purposes: food and seed. Neither of those is for the benefit of the branch. The husbandman (farmer) benefits. He can eat it, or sell it. The birds and animals benefit. They can eat and live. And of course, the seed, when planted, brings forth new life, which then grows to maturity, bearing multiplied fruit.
The branch, however, doesn’t receive anything from the fruit. It just GIVES… FOR the fruit. But the branch has nothing in itself to give. It is just a channel, a vessel, for the life of the tree to flow through, so that the tree can bear fruit for the birds and animals, and the farmer who planted it, and cares for it.
Even so, we too, as branches, have no ability in ourselves to bear fruit. We are just vessels, or conduits, of the life flowing from the vine, which produces the fruit. The more that life flows through us, the greater the fruit. Less flow equals less fruit. If there’s no flow from the vine, there’s no fruit, and the branch itself is in danger of being cut off.
That does not mean that the branch must first produce fruit of itself, in order to qualify to abide in the vine. It can do NOTHING apart from the vine. The fruit is the RESULT of abiding in the vine. The abiding must come first. Look to the vine… draw life from the vine, and the fruit will come.
When Jesus says, “abide IN”, He means much more than simply “connected TO”. Branches can be connected to a vine, and yet bear no fruit. A branch can even be completely dead, but physically “connected”. He wants us to abide in Him, in such a way that there is nothing in us, or between us and the Lord, that in any way restricts the flow of life to the fruit.
If the branch bears fruit, then the husbandman looks for things which could be reducing the harvest. He purges, or prunes, those things away. The things he cuts away might not necessarily be “bad”… just unnecessary, and contributing nothing to the vine, or the fruit. Sometimes, things that appear harmless, or even “good”, must be pruned away, that the branch may bring forth MORE fruit.
All the “work” of the branch… all the pouring out… all the sacrifices… all the pruning, is FOR the fruit. The branch still gets all its life from the vine… not from the fruit. The branch grows and is nourished by drawing life from the vine. There are times and seasons for pruning, for growth, for blooming, for fruit, and for harvest… but in every season, the branch needs to be drawing everything that the vine supplies.
“Bearing much fruit” takes a selfless life; humble, and knowing our total dependence on God. Jesus not only taught it so wonderfully, but lived it perfectly. Now we just need to abide in Him, so that everything about Him flows freely through us… that our fruit may abound, that the Father may be glorified!
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