Fruity Pruning

A lot of things stuck out to me in John today, I feel like this book is getting read way too fast- it will be ending way too soon for my liking. John 14:13-14 caused me to stop and think ("And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.") But that is not what I am going to write on today (though I really would like too). I thought this parable was really applicable to me-

In John 15 Jesus says;
"I AM the True Vine, and My Father is the gardener. Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit."

So we're Christians, followers and imitators of Christ, but say we're just chilling on the Jesus vine - are we really imitating anything about Jesus? He never stopped bearing fruit, the produce of sincere love, not even as he died. If we aren't bearing fruit (or if we have produced fruit sometime in the past, but stopped) we will get cut away, period. Less eternally painful is the process of pruning. God is trimming away the parts of us that aren't like Him, that don't bear fruit, if we stay connected an surrendered to Him. He continually cleanses and trims what is not in character with the True Vine away. God isn't cutting away the parts in us that are hard to give up to see the pained expression on our faces as we are asked to give something up- no, he trims us so that we may bear MORE and BETTER fruit. See- there's a reason we have to keep surrendering ourselves to God.

Jesus continues to say that if we live in Him he will live in us. Everyone then, and now, knows that if you pluck a branch off of a vine it will wither, at first you might not be able to tell, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. If we are not vitally united to the vine (Jesus)there is not going to be growth, we won't see the fruits of the spirit or any other good fruit. So if people have a hard time seeing the fruit in our lives we're going to need to ask why that is.