The True Vine
John 15:1-11
As Jesus unfolds this metaphor, He first identifies who He is: the true vine. Then, He identifies who His Father is: the gardener. This leaves the branches. In the picture Jesus paints, we are the branches.
Jesus, the perfect source, is our pathway to life. It is only through Him and Him alone that we can be spiritually alive. When a branch is connected to a vine, it receives what it needs to live. As soon as it is disconnected, it can no longer live. Jesus uses this picture for a distinct reason: to show His people that there is no other way to live.
Likewise, as our gardener, the Father knows exactly what needs to be done for us to flourish, grow, and be saved from sin. Perhaps you know someone who enjoys gardening or growing plants. How pleased they are when their plants are thriving and healthy and perhaps even sprouting new growth. However, when dead branches remain attached, a portion of the energy that the plant produces is invested into its unhealthy branches. Any good gardener would rather the plant's energy go towards healthy growth. So, a gardener trims away the dead branches out of wisdom and love.
In the same way, when the sinful parts of our old selves remain attached to us, our hearts and minds put unnecessary energy towards those things. Yet so lovingly, our great Gardener trims away the parts of us that will not bear fruit. His desire is for our spiritual flourishing and a greater focus on connection to the true vine. This connection leads us to maturity in the bearing of new, Christ-reflecting fruit and the pruning of old, self-reflecting sin. As followers of Jesus, we are gifted a new self to put on, leaving our old self behind (Ephesians 4:22-24). What did we do to deserve this blessed pruning and the invitation to abide with Christ? The reality is that we, as helpless, measly branches, have no reason to deserve the tending of our Lord. Yet our Father, out of the greatness of His love, prunes us, allowing us to experience the fullness of satisfaction that comes from abiding in Jesus and obeying His commandments.
Perhaps when you hear talk of “fruit,” a few things come to mind. It is essential to clarify that when Jesus speaks to His disciples of bearing fruit, He is talking of fruit that may align with what we see in Galatians 5:22-23, the fruits of the Spirit. Jesus guarantees that He will send us a Helper, the Holy Spirit, who fills us (John 14:26). Together, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and The Father become a Christian’s true source of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. These are true fruit.
In verse eleven, Jesus reveals that He tells His disciples all of this because He desires for our joy to be complete. He invites us to abide in His love, as He abides in His Father’s love.
The word “abide” that Jesus uses means “to be,” “to sit,” “to exist,” or to “dwell in His presence.” What a wonderful invitation from our King that we are called to sit in the presence of a holy God simply. This stillness and attachment to our true source of life changes us. It will transform the broken and comfort the hurting. This means we must practice abiding or being present in His wonderful presence—this will change us.
Are there places where you feel like God is taking things you once loved away? Perhaps God is pruning you and making more room for healthy fruit. Remember that He does this so that our joy may be complete in Him and because He cares for us.
Turn your affections towards the one who calls us to abide in His love simply. What a wonderful invitation to sit with the very King who bled and died on our behalf. He is alive, and he invites us into a relationship with Him today. “Abide in me, and I in you.”
