John 15 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. . . . 4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with Me. Continue reading
In John 15:5-8: Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
Galatians 5:22 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Matthew 28:19, in Jesus’ Great Commission, He says, in part, “Go make disciples . . .” What is fruit? Fruit is two things: 1] the fruit of the Spirit; and 2] disciples we help God bring to Jesus. If you are filled with the Spirit, [1] you will bear (show, demonstrate, produce) the fruits of the Spirit. You’ll act and talk nice, you’ll be happy and giving and forgiving; you will exhibit the characteristics of love that are discussed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, “the Love Chapter”. AND [2] You can’t help but tell what you’ve seen and heard about Jesus. (see Acts 4:20) When you do that, others will come to know Jesus; they will become disciples of Jesus; they will become the fruit of your discipleship. Jesus says, in Luke 9:23, “If you want to be my disciple, deny yourself, take up your cross (die to your sinful nature) daily, and follow Me.” That’s what it means when it says in John 15, “If you abide in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.”
I was going to ask, “How do we bear fruit?”, but Jesus already answered it. So let me add: God picked us (Christian brothers and sisters) before the foundations of the earth to be His, to be surrendered to Him, to do His will, so He will be glorified, and He will give us whatever we ask because we bear much fruit. Talk about being in tune with the Spirit! Praise the Lord, Hallelujah!
In Matthew 13: 1-9 and 18-23, Jesus tells the parable of the “Sower”. He tells the story of the farmer casting seeds; some fell near the road and the birds ate them; some fell in the rocks, but because the soil was thin, when the sun came they withered away; some fell in the thorns and the thorns choked them out; and some fell on fertile ground and they bore fruit, 30, 60 and 100 times as much as was planted.
I want to talk about the seed that feel in the thorns; in verse 22, Jesus says, “Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the Word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and he becomes unfruitful. Seems like most of the people I know who claim to believe in Jesus, here in 2015 America; fall in ‘Category No. Three’ of this parable: “Those who hear the Word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and they become unfruitful.”
What cares? Work. Busy-ness. Stress. Taxes. Fear. Sickness. Worry. Sometimes we’re like Chicken Little, running around saying , “The sky is falling. The sky is falling!”. Sometimes it seems like the sky really IS falling.
What deceit? (lies from the devil) The lies about how money will solve all our problems. Then we can have cattle in the bank and money out West. We can travel, and dance and sing and party to our heart’s content. We can have all kinds of stuff we can use for 15 minutes and then stack in the closet or the garage to get in the way. We can have big stuff that requires care, maintenance, repair and expense on a regular basis, so much that we don’t know how we’ll pay for it.
What’s wrong with all this? It distracts us from God. Cares and lies. How do we fix it? We quit focusing on the cares and stuff and start focusing on God. We “trust the Lord with all our hearts and lean not to our own understanding, in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will take care of us.” (See Proverbs 3:5-6) Then we really can ‘bear fruit’ to the glory of God.
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