We picked our first ripe fruit of the garden yesterday. It was a lovely green zucchini, which promptly made its way into a pan with onions and peppers and tomatoes frozen from last year’s garden. If the heat had not already announced summer’s arrival, that zucchini did!
Bob has been tending his garden and it is beginning to respond to his attention. There are a lot of tomato blossoms and a couple little peppers on the vines. Soon we will also have Armenian cucumbers, eggplant, beans and other wonderful crops.
I was reading in John 15 this morning. The chapter begins with Jesus talking about “The Vine and the Branches.”
Jesus told his disciples that He is that true vine and His Father is the keeper of the vineyard. We are branches meant to produce much fruit. Read those first eight verses and notice how many times Jesus mentions abiding (or remaining, continuing depending on your translation). I counted seven times in eight verses!
Each of those is a form of the Greek word “Menó,” which means simply to abide, remain, or continue.
As you read those eight verses, you will come away with a few truths. We are to produce fruit. God Himself will prune away anything in our lives that hampers that production of fruit so that we not only produce fruit, we produce abundant good fruit.
We cannot, however, produce any fruit unless we remain in Christ Jesus. In fact, Jesus is noticeably clear that fruit that pleases God cannot be brought forth by our own efforts. We can do nothing apart from Christ Jesus.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.” [John 15:5 HCSB]