Have you had your JOY JUICE today? It’s squeezed from the delicious fruit of the
Vine!
We’ve
looked this week at the verse in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the
branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit,
for apart from me you can do nothing.”
Jesus is
the true Vine. We, as His followers, are
the branches. The question is, are we
fruitful branches? Or are we “sucker
shoots”?
A
vine left to itself produces outgrowths called "sucker shoots". As
they grow larger, they begin to do exactly what their name suggests: they suck
away the life-giving sap on its way from the vine to the branch. Before long,
the branch becomes malnourished and eventually dies, all because the sucker
shoot was allowed to consume what was originally intended for the branch.
Sucker shoots will never bear fruit. They will grow leaves abundantly, but they
will never produce fruit. They will only greatly reduce the quantity and
quality of fruit the true branches can bear.
That’s why pruning is necessary! The
fruitless branches must be cut off and thrown away; and those that are bearing
little fruit need to be pruned so that they will produce even more fruit. Have you experienced the pruning
process? It’s not always pleasant; but
when the “new fruit” comes, we can “taste and see that the Lord is
“joyfully”good!
Is the fruit of JOY evident in your life? Be a fruitful branch by “ABIDING
in Christ”!
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