Every branch that bears fruit is pruned. - John 15

[St. SteVen]

A point that stood out to me from Sunday's sermon this week.

- Are you being pruned?
- What good fruit are you producing?
- Why are you being pruned?
- What does being pruned look like from a practical view?
- What gets pruned (cut away) and what is left?

John 15:1-2 NIV
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit,
while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a]
so that it will be even more fruitful.

/

 

[St. SteVen]

I've never visited a vineyard, but I have been to several apple orchards.

Interesting to compare an orchard tree to a wild apple tree.
The orchard trees are pruned back mercilessly.
By harvest time they are heavy with fruit.

A wild apple tree, on the other hand, is full branched a loaded with tiny useless fruit.

My wife and visited an apple orchard this Autumn.
We encountered a worker while trying to find the walking path into the orchard.

He jokingly poked around on my jacket to see if I had plenty of pockets.
Then he encouraged us to take as many apples with us as we could carry on our person.
He said he had more apples than he knew what to do with. - LOL

Imagine if someone said that about your spiritual life.

John 10:10 NIV
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

/

 

[Big Boy Johnson]

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit

You forgot to mention some entire branches get cut off if they don't bare fruit.
This is loss of salvation for those branches getting cut off.

Once this happens, they must confess and forsake their sin to be in right standing with the Lord once again.
Did they not address this part of what Jesus taught?

Most preachers skip over this part because they don't want to discuss the fact that Jesus did not teaching OSAS which is of course what cherry pickers do is not talk about portions of God's Word that doesn't agree with their pet doctrine of OSAS