How Do You Rate?

John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. If you are connected to God the father, through his Son Jesus Christ you are the branch that Jesus is talking about. So what is the purpose of the branch, Jesus makes it very clear in verse 2, to bear fruit. The emphasis of the Christian life is to bear fruit, the activity of the Christian life is to bear fruit, the purpose of the Christian life is to bear fruit.

What is the fruit God is producing in your life? The fruit of the vine will be the natural outflow of the life of the vine. Jesus is the Vine. When we are united with Him we are identified with Him. We produce His wine. We reproduce Christ. He works in us what He produces.

God expects the fruit of the Holy Spirit to be produced in our lives. Only Jesus living in us can produce the fruit of the Spirit. God expects to see likeness to Jesus Christ. He examines our lives and expects to see love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, and self–control. The fruit is Christ–likeness. The fruit is the righteousness of God in the heart. It is the likeness of Christ.

What flows out of the vine, is not building church, preaching good sermon, being a good Sunday school teacher, usher or choir member. It is the natural outflow of the life of the vine, love, peace joy, and all the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5. All the other things we do are subsidiary; they are supplemental to our live in the Christ (the vine).

Let me ask this question, how fruitful is your life today? If you had to rate how effective you were at bearing fruit on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most Christ like, how would you rate? Rate yourself on love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, and self–control. If you did an honest self-assessment, you may have found significant room for improvement.

Let’s look at God’s process of making us fruitful. What he does is he prunes us. Shoots are things that attach to the vine that are toxic to the life of the branches. They can bring disease and suck the nutrients and the life out of the real branches. The vine dresser has to cut them off to keep the branches protected and productive.

Just as the vinedresser carefully cut shoots off the vine with the pruning hook, God removes the things from our lives that stifle our growth and keep us from producing for the Kingdom. Our pruning hook may look like a job that pushes us past our limits or relationship that needs to end. It may be God encouraging you to be compassionate with someone who is not deserving, or forgiving someone who hurt you.

God’s pruning is not meant to hurt us, it is meant to purge us of the things that are keeping us from operating at full capacity for the Lord. Gods pruning is disconnecting us from the overgrowth of laziness and complacency, negative self-talk, selfishness and impatience with others. It is the cutting off of fear, doubt, and belief that we are incapable of doing what He asks of us by placing us in situations where we are forced to rely on Him.

God knows “the plans He has for us, plans to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). Those plans require God to prune us from things, people and ways of thinking that are blocking us from operating in the purpose He has for our lives. Our job is to allow God to do His work within us so we can produce for His Kingdom abundantly.

God help me to be more like Jesus. Say it with me “God help me to be more like Jesus”.