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John Chapter Fifteen

John 15:1~8

The usual practice in viticulture, the care of vines, is for the branches to be pruned back each year in order to cleanse them. A vine produces certain shoots called “sucker shoots,” which start to grow where a branch joins the stem. If allowed to continue to grow, they would dissipate the life of the vine through so many braches that the vine would produce little or no fruit and would produce mainly leaves instead. Every vinedresser knows it is important to prune away these little sucker shoots to ensure plentiful fruit. Since the shoots grow right where the branch joins the stem, creating a tight cluster where dirt, leaves, and other debris collect, the pruning is basically a cleansing process.

The Father’s work in our lives is to find a branch that is beginning to bear fruit, beginning to produce the likeness of Christ, and then to cut it back. He trims off the troublesome shoots, so that we may bear more fruit.

John 15:4 Abiding

One year the peaches were especially abundant. The fruit was big and juicy, and it was one of the best crops in memory. While harvesting the crop, a picker noticed a limb that had fallen from a tree. Its fruit was rotten and shriveled. Because the limb was detached from the tree, it was no longer producing the good fruit that it should. The same is true of the Christian who ceases to abide in Christ—he ceases to produce good fruit.