THURSDAY December 5th
John 15:1 ‘“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.”’
To understand this ‘I am’ statement we need also to include verse 5 ‘I am the vine; you are the branches’, I will sum it up this way, by coming to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we should become disconnected from the world, that is all that is connected to walking in darkness and become connected to the Lord Jesus Christ as the vine. The source of our daily sustenance and our daily strength is now to be drawn from him and him alone, and as a result we should be spiritually fruitful.
So, to me I would use keywords which are linked to this statement that must be applied to you and me.
There is connection, continuation, fruitfulness and pruning. These are the positive outcomes of a life that is connected to Christ, they live for him, they abide in him and are daily receiving from Christ. It is those who have chosen to forsake the world and the things of the world and have chosen instead to fill their lives with righteousness, Jesus said that those who do this will become fruitful, and to maintain the fruitfulness will be pruned.
But Jesus also talks of those who fail to be connected as they ought to be, he says that they have become fruitless, that means they do not show any signs of life, so they are like dead branches and because of their fruitlessness they will be cut off.
Now, a branch that is cut off is different from a branch that is pruned. I regularly like to prune the plants that are growing in my garden, but I also like to cut off, get rid of the plants that are not producing whatever it is they should be producing, whether flowers or fruit.
What is the difference between the two. Generally, to cut off, means to cut the branch off exactly at the spot where it is coming from off the main trunk of the tree or main stem of the plant, the cutting off detaches the whole branch, and it will no longer be attached to the source of life and will not grow.
To prune means that you just cut off the end of the branch maybe a few inches or feet along from the end, and this in turn will promote further growth, because the branch is still there and still connected to the source of its life.
We need to ensure that we remain connected to Jesus the vine and ensure that we remain connected so that our lives will be fruitful and will bring glory to God.
I have only touched briefly on this ‘I am’ statement, but can I encourage each one of us to look at the full account in John 15:1-17, for the fruit that seems to be seen in this chapter, and perhaps the most important is the fruit of love which proves we are his disciples and we know of course that love is a segment in what we term the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23.