Connected to the True Vine

“As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” 

The image of the Vine and the branches is one that has great importance in our day to day lives.  Each day we are confronted with the truth of what would happen if we are separated from the Vine:  we die!  What happens to a body that’s separated from its head?  Apart from the Vine, branches can do nothing!  We have no life apart from Christ.  The sap that flows from the vine nourishes the branches.  We confess that our very lives sprout forth from our Heavenly Father, and that by our sin, we have cut ourselves off from our source of life.  Yet, by His grace through the blood of His Son, shed on the cross for the sins of the world, our sin, we have been reconciled to God, grafted back into the true vine!

The life that flows from the side of Christ Crucified and Risen now nourishes us with His life and forgiveness, so that by faith we might live in union with Him.  The message of the Vine and the branches gives us hope!  Through being grafted into the Vine and by the care of the Vinedresser – we bear His fruit!

So how can our lives be altered, changed, transformed?  Remember, we don’t produce fruit – Jesus does.  When our lives are so consumed with all sorts of things other than bearing the fruit of Christ – then we are the branches that need to pruning of the vinedresser.  The word for pruning in Greek means “Cleanse”.  It takes this pruning – this cleansing – to remove bugs and disease that will cause the branch not to produce fruit.  It’s for that reason that we need pruning.  When we experience this pruning, we must trust that God is in control and the Vinedresser knows that He is doing – He’s working for our very best!

Satan would love for us to think otherwise though.  Satan works very hard to convince us that we don’t need pruning – that He would never cut into our lives – that we would be in compete control.  But jointed to satan – we are dead!

Thanks be to God – for we are alive in Christ.  One of my favorite parts of God’s Word is Galatians 2:20 which says, “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”  We are alive in Christ – the true Vine – and through Him we produce His fruit.

That fruit that we produce is what Paul speaks of in Galatians chapter 5 - the fruit of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control”. These are, above all, characteristics of our Savior in his relationship with us.  But they are also the fruit that He produce in us as we are joined and grafted into Him.

Being grafted into the True Vine, may the Holy Spirit use the good fruit we produce to be a blessing to each other, our families, and our community and to give the glory to God the Father.