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Friday, June 20, 2014

Sucker Shoots or Fruitful Branches?



           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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