The life of a branch

We have a fruit tree in the back yard that blossoms each spring, but it bears little fruit. It needs another tree nearby as a ‘cross pollinator’ and without it, nothing happens. The other tree does not need to be the same variety. It just needs to be there.

I’m not a horticulturist, but as I observe the behavior of my plants, I’ve noticed a few other interesting things. For instance, one lovely perennial produced incredible flowers the first two years that I had it. Then it began to spread and move. The third year it came up about a foot from where it was planted. The next year there were three plants. One of them was about five feet from the original spot and blooms were spotty. The year after that, it disappeared altogether.

Plants can be finicky, even those with a reputation for being easy to grow. Of that category, I have other perennials that grow so well that they take over the space that they are in, and if each plant is not controlled and pruned, it becomes so rampant that it begins to choke itself to death.

In John 15, Jesus uses the image of a vine and branches to describe how I am in relationship with Him. He is the vine, His Father is the vine dresser, and I am a branch. He warns that any branch that does not bear fruit will be lopped off, but if I bear fruit, I can expect to be ‘pruned’ that I might bear even more fruit.

I’ve done that to trees. I remember a crab apple on our farm that had dense branches. It never had apples, so I thinned it out according to something I read about a tree; it should look as if a bird could fly through it. The next year nothing happened, but the second year we had a bumper crop of apples.

Jesus clarified that pruning isn’t necessarily about sin (although it usually is). He said I am “already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” When He saved me and came into my heart, He also forgave all my sin, past, present and future. Pruning is about getting rid of those dead branches that do not produce fruit. It might be a sinful pattern or way of thinking that needs to be cut away, but it might also be some activity that simply has no value to His plan for my life. It isn’t sinful and dead, but it blocks fruit production.

Then He says (John 15:4), “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

My part is sticking close to Him. I’ve always come away from this verse with that understanding. However, this morning’s devotional reading challenges me to look again. Three little words make the difference — “I in you.”

Jesus lives in me. Without that, I could no more stay close to Him than a dead branch could produce fruit. He is my life. He is holding on to me, pouring out His love into my heart, and producing evidences of His life so that I can be like Him, my Vine. That life originates in the Vine, not the branch. I have been grafted in through the powerful work of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t jump up there myself; He put me there. I am in Christ, but more important; Christ is in me. The graft holds, not because I abide in Him, as important as that is, but because He abides in me.