John 15: 1-17

I Am The True Vine

The authors of the bible did not use these analogies by accident. God’s word spoken through them clearly illustrates how nature works in much the same way as man.

Last fall I received a call from my adult daughter, inquiring if she had pruned the young bushes in her front yard properly. The shrubs were nothing to look at to begin with, rather scraggly and weak looking. I inquired, “How did you do it?” “Well,” she hesitated, “I used a clipper and cut all the branches down about the same length.” “How much did you leave above the ground?” was my reply. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe an inch,” was her quiet come back. I could tell by her voice she thought she may have gone a bit too far for these young perennials to make it through a rough Midwest winter, but I encouraged her. I shared that I don’t generally cut mine back quite that far, yet a good pruning can often be just what it takes for them to come back better than ever. I believe my optimism left her with a bit of hope for new sprouts in the spring.

She recently sent a picture of her severely pruned shrubs on my phone, and to her delight and mine, though they are much smaller than last year, they are thriving. Perhaps the severe blow they survived helped them somehow realize their vulnerability, and push back through the dirt despite the odds, to show my daughter their true beauty and worth.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He 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.”  John 15: 1-2 “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain on the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” John 15:4 Though our God is much more deliberate about which of our branches is cut off, which ones are pruned, and to what depth than my daughter was, the truth is;

All created by God, we are an extension of him. We are empowered by God’s grace and it is by remaining in him and offering God’s Grace to others that we truly live. This passage ends with  “Love Each Other.”

Read/Listen to John 15:1-17