Branch Life

Can we step back a moment and take inventory of our condition?  Are we bearing much fruit?  Are we connected to the vine?  Are we availing ourselves to the gardener and giving Him freedom to prune us as He wishes or have we begun to argue with Him and bend away from His shears?  The branch that bears little fruit is usually the most comfortable of the branches until it begins to look about and see just how impoverished it is.  Satan does not tear at us in a mighty rush of hardship and anguish, he merely rocks us to sleep and before we know it, we have become useless but settled.  You can tell when you have given up on truly following Christ if you argue about what fruit-bearing means...Is it external to us or internal...Is fruit bearing what we do with the Gospel or what the Gospel does with us?  When the sleep gets knocked out of us by some great crisis or upheaval, we find that we are free once again to face ourselves honestly.  If we can get past the "Why is God doing this to me", there is the possibility that we might once again bear fruit and become available to God to transform both in us and through us.  Fruit that "will last" is obvious and not theologically determined but spiritually discovered by obedience and faith.  If we would just do what God tells us to do, whether a big thing or small, it will manifest itself in fruit bearing.  Much depression, discouragement, frustration and disharmony within the Christian community would be tossed aside if we would simply begin bearing fruit as Christ works His way in us and through us.

This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.    John 15:8 NIV