Lessons From the Vine

The Vine and the Branches
1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. (For more vine talk, see John 15.)

Today one of our Board Members, Bruce, led devos. He was talking about the passage above. A few things struck me...

1. Cutting off is an act of love, even though it hurts. Conviction of sin is an act of love, even though it hurts. God doesn't want us to be like this; he wants us to be more free and live more whole and abundant and fulfilling lives....so he points out the ways we aren't.

2. Both good and bad things are cut off (pruning is a form of cutting)...sometimes God asks us to stop doing things that are good or morally acceptable. That makes me think of taking steps to not over-commit. Usually over-committed people aren't necessarily involved in "bad" activities, but the badness is just that there are SO MANY activities. Is God asking you to do some pruning? To cut out anything that's good so that you can be more fruitful?

3. I am already clean...I have a hard time forgiving myself a lot and it's just incredible that God forgives us; we are such messed up people! Somewhere recently I read something about how "blameless" does not equal "faultless." God sees us as blameless and took the blame for our sin, but we aren't faultless. We still screw up all the time. God isn't denying the fact that we sin all the time. He isn't pretending he didn't notice all the times we've screwed up. He isn't looking at us and saying, "You have no faults; you're perfect, just like me!" He knows everything. He's saying, "I know every rotten thing you've done, but I'm not going to punish you for those rotten things (sins) because I already took the punishment/blame for them on the cross." I never understood how God could see me as blameless if I've done awful things because I always used to think that blameless equaled faultless, but they're different.

4. No branch can bear fruit by itself....Bruce said it's not the branch's job to bear fruit. The vine is what will control whether there is fruit. I can't bear fruit by working harder or trying to be perfect, just by staying connected to God. God controls the growth and development of the fruit. My job is to not cut myself off from Him. That is plenty big enough of a job, I'd say, too. My job is to focus on God, not to be inspecting the quality and quantity of my fruit.

It was a perfect day for Bruce to share about that. Yesterday I got to love and encourage and pray for several people and I was amazed that I got to be a part of that. I could not have arranged that---so many different people at so many different times, right when they needed a friend. That was totally God. The fruit just kind of happened. It wasn't planned. It wasn't something I prayed a lot about beforehand. It wasn't any work that I did. He just put me in the same place as the people and they were hurting and I loved them and it was natural. It just happened. It makes me want to be more connected to him.