John 15.1-4 says— “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”
Jesus chose many allusions, illustrations, and metaphors in His teaching. One that stands out, in particular, is the vine. Of the entire plant kingdom there is not one more like man and his relation with Jesus, than the vine. You won’t find a fruit bearing plant which the fruit and its juice are so full, so life giving and stimulating, so able to be abundant, than the vine. Not one needs pruning so unsparingly and so unceasingly than the vine. It is a wonder anyone would want to spend that much time with it. I would suppose the Husbandman would really need to love the vine and the offspring branches very much. No plant is so dependent on cultivation and training. With all of this work, none yields a richer reward to the Husbandman.
In some of His last recorded teachings, Jesus yields us one of the most wonderful parables, the Vine and Branches from John 15. The focus of love, attention, relational deepening fellowship, and the need to be ‘worked on’ constantly. The majority f the parable refers to this need of pruning. Without pruning the vine, the blessings it brings, will not come. There is abundant treasures that can bleed from the fruit naturally coming from the branches that are well pruned. “Every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15.2).
Pruning is difficult, but necessary. God, the Husbandman, will nip away the excess and deadly pieces of us, the branches. It is absolutely essential, or disease will set in the branch and it may need to be cut off from fellowship. Whether it be trials, or even some necessary pain, we have a disease that enters in more easily than it once did. For North American christians, we have an abundance of everything. Even for the poorest amongst us, there is very little need that cannot be met in some way. Our branch has a tendency to get thick with more than need, but also ‘wants’. We flourish in the ‘too much’ and call it good. But a branch on a vine that becomes too weighty in itself, without bearing life giving fruit, tends toward worse health and eventually dies under its own weight of excess.
Our excess then tends toward our dreaded deadly disease of self-confidence. It moves us away from the essential abiding in Christ, to hear only our own voice and our own pleasure. Our ears become fat. To the point we can barely hear the voice of the Spirit beckoning us to abide still more closely. The Husbandman, in His great love, must prune us. If not we will suffer loss.
For a believer to abide in Christ, they must see that their efforts did not get them where they are at in the vine in the first place. They were an offspring themselves from the vine. He brought you forth. He made you. He spring you out from within Himself. We are born of Him, born again. Abide in Christ… not ourself. It is IN Him “… we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.” (Acts 17.28) Paul said this in Athens to pagans that there is a God that is known, and you can know Him. It is IN Him all this is possible and nothing is possible outside of Him. It is Satan and his snares and traps that tempt us to be self-reliant and self-confident. We must see the logic in this passage. Jesus brought you forth from within Himself, how could it be possible for you to do anything that concerns Him, independently of Him? Our abiding is the key to not only the survival of the branches, but the thriving of them as well. It is His will that we not only bear fruit, but much, more, and abundant, fruit. He made it clear in verse 4— “…As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”
Our hearts and minds are continually prone to wander away, not deeper into, Him. All of the abundant prosperity and ease, that brings fleshly enjoyment, way too easily satisfies us. We dont want to do things like “endure” or “sacrifice”. They actually become dirty words to the common Christian. We begin to think the world owes us something. We think the world revolves around us. Couple that with the insistent push toward more social connections on platforms that are not real, interactive relationships. All of this makes us dull of our spiritual discernment. It drowns us in so much extra, that we no longer seek the abundance God can give that makes us never thirst again.
Why do we no longer seek a full communion with Him. Why is it we are satisfied with the minimal of God, but cannot get enough of what the world is selling? Ecclesiastes 1.8 says— “the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” Is it not true that Satan knows what sells and he’s doing a fantastic job marketing meat byproducts as choice steak? We fall for it, because our spiritual senses are dull from the excess.
Jesus promises abundance in categories that actually matter. Fruit. He expects us to bear fruit and do so in abundance. He provides for us things that the world just cannot provide and yet everyone longs for: joy, peace, comfort, security, eternity. It is God’s will that an abundance of Himself flows through you. He brought you forth from Himself as a branch that desperately needs pruning. Not because He made a mistake with this branch or that one, but because we tend to add more weight to our own branch without Him.
Thank you Lord for your loving pruning. Thank you for taking the unnecessary from me and bringing more of you out of me. Thank you for taking the weight I cannot bear, even though I took it on myself. Your mercy is matchless and hard for me to understand. Thank you that you have a plan to bring fruit in abundance, so much so that I (branch) will droop with weight of fruit that you’ve prepared me to withstand. Your pruning is becoming a joy to behold. It hurts, but I trust your hand. I love you Lord. Help me to abide in you still.