In the vine ...

Hear the word of God:

"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. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain 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.

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

(John 15:1-8, NIV)

You are the vine, I am a branch

Life flows from the vine out through the branches. When Jesus calls himself the true vine, he describes our relationship with him as one of dependence. We cannot bear fruit without remaining connected to the vine. A branch by itself is nothing; the only thing to do is cut it off. A vine has a special connection with its branches, though. As long as the branches are connected to the vine, the vine sends out life to the branches

You are the vine, I am a branch

"Remain in me and I will remain in you," Jesus says, indicating the scope of that connection. The fullest realization of who Jesus is comes when we are so fully consumed and subsumed in him that we are unable to distinguish who we are apart from who he is. When we remain in Jesus and he remains in us, we know who he is at a gut-level. We have become so saturated with who he is that we know his identity deep down, in the pits of our stomachs.

You are the vine, I am a branch

This call means letting go of the pride and self-sufficiency that suffocate us. Holding to the true vine means acknowledging that he is the vine and we are branches. We cannot do anything on our own, so we must learn to abide in the vine. We cannot produce fruit without him, without the power that always flow from vine out to branches, never the other way around.

You are the vine, I am a branch

Our fruitfulness brings glory to God, and so he prunes us to make us even more fruitful. Here is yet another dimension of Jesus' metaphor - as branches, we are the agents of God's work in the world, the hands through which he touches the world. We are the fruit-bearers of the true vine, receiving life and power from the vine and bearing fruit that is visible to all. A vine does not simply bear fruit itself, it breathes life into its branches so that they can bear fruit.

You are the vine, I am a branch

Blessings,

Greg

Bearing fruit and growing ...

Hear the word of God:

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints—the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.”
Colossians 1:3-6

Our faith is growing and our love is growing for each other. Can you feel that as we worship together, pray together, and serve together? We are going with our boys this weekend to LTC. This is a time to help them understand how to be a leader in God’s Kingdom. Every practice, every time of worship, and every time of service is a time where they watch us and whether we realize it or not, they begin to imitate us. Our own children are like this and our boys are like this. We will be looking at some of your thoughts over the next few days, as we finish up this project, but I just wanted to remind us all that what is in our hearts and how we act on that will overflow out into the lives of all we know and all we meet. We should be praying for each other as we try to shine our light to this world, beginning with our boys.

You are all in my prayers!

Jason

Kingdom fruit

Today, we end a long week with Paul’s simple but powerful call to the fruit of the Spirit.
I know that you know this passage well,
so take the time to read it slowly, savor it, and meditate upon it.
How will this fruit take shape among us as God’s people?

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.
For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh;
for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,
idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions,
envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.
I am warning you, as I warned you before:
those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There is no law against such things.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.

Galatians 5:16-26 – NRSV

May we seek to bear godly fruit as God’s people.

Grace and peace,

Ron