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I Heard it Through the Grapevine

by Jerry Ousley  
5/12/2017 / Christian Living

            Grapevines; we’ve picked grapes from them, swung from them, and yes, even tried to smoke them (and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone).  Those vines twist and turn every which direction around trees growing enormously large – enough to hold the weight of a grown man!  Just think of Tarzan swinging through the jungles on those things; they had to be big.

 

            If you’ve ever eaten the grapes from wild vines then you know how bitter those things can be.  Yet we’ve managed to tame them and for several thousand years they have yielded their fruits in the way of wine, juice, pies, raisins, jelly, jam and other products.  Oh yeah, they’re good to eat plain too.

 

            When we first moved to where we now live there was a grape arbor in the back.  The first couple of years we picked grapes from them and Debbie made some grape jelly.  But we didn’t know the first thing about pruning, grafting or how to take care of them and after another year or so they died.  That was unfortunate indeed.

 

            I’ve grown accustomed to drinking a glass of cold grape juice before going to bed each night.  When I find myself in a place where I don’t have it I really miss it.  They say that grape juice is good for the heart.  I don’t know much about medicine and I don’t drink it for my heart necessarily; I just like the taste.  But hey, if I get a side benefit from it I have no problem with that.

 

            In John 15 Jesus compared the grape vine to being in Christ.  He said in verses 1-2 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”  What a neat idea!  The main plant is called the vine and the other extensions from the vine are called branches.  That’s us.  God is the vinedresser taking care of the entire network of branches.

 

            But the main purpose of the grapevine is to produce fruit.  Let’s face it, there’s nothing really pretty about a grape vine.  It just winds and twists ever growing and extending itself out.  If it didn’t produce grapes we’d consider it a weed and cut it down.  So the production of grapes on the vine becomes very important.

 

            Jesus told us in these verses that as God dresses the vine when He finds branches that don’t bear fruit they are removed – cut off.  And those that do produce fruit are pruned back so that they will produce even more fruit.  What does that mean to us?  Simply that if we aren’t doing what we are supposed to do – produce fruit – then we aren’t left on the vine.  We’re cut away.  I realize that there is a host of Christians who believe that if we have come into Christ we can never be removed.  But that’s not exactly what the Bible says now is it?  Let me clarify.  I whole-heartedly agree that a Christian who loves the Lord with all his heart, soul, and might will produce fruit.  There are really only two reasons why a Christian wouldn’t produce fruit; either he or she isn’t really a Christian (they haven’t been born-again), or they have made a choice to leave the vine and stop producing fruit.  I can’t even imagine why a believer would ever want to do this but apparently it happens.  Remember, there is a balance in the teachings of the Bible.  Rather than try to argue the point and come up with excuses however, as to whether we can lose our salvation or not, the best thing to do is to stay as close to the Lord as we possibly can.  Then we will automatically be producing fruit and we just won’t have to worry about it one way or another.

 

            Also we are told that those producing fruit will be pruned or cut back so as to make more fruit.  The reason for this is that if the fruit-bearing branch is left to continue growing any way it wants to it will use the majority of its energy growing instead of producing fruit.  As it is pruned it is forced to concentrate on making grapes.  Sometimes we are pruned too.  God will allow us to be tested and tried, not because He wants to see what we’ve got but so we will learn to produce even more fruit.

 

            What a privilege to be a part of the vine!  But let’s produce fruit.  Next we’ll discuss just what that fruit is.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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