Head: Know God's Word | Heart: Love God | Hands: Follow God's Way 

Read John 15:1-17

Head 

I love gardening! I love caring for plants and flowers in my garden. I love the beauty of the flowers they produce. The flowers aren't just for my enjoyment, but they are also for our pollinator friends, like bees. Hearing the buzz of the bees gathering the pollen or seeing the butterflies land on every bloom or the hummingbirds seek out the nectar of the flowers that provide food for them is pure joy to me. 

Today we venture into the passage of John 15:1-17, a parable about gardening. A parable is a simple story that teaches a lesson. God uses them to show us how to live for Him. The story is about a vine, a branch, and a gardener who cares for the vine. In this story, the vine is Jesus, the branches are His followers, and the gardener is God. It teaches us that to produce fruit that glorifies God, we must stay close to Jesus. So, if we have confessed that Jesus is Lord of our life, He wants us to follow Him so that we will bear much fruit, the evidence of Jesus in our lives. In the story, it says any branch that doesn’t bear fruit - that doesn’t have evidence of Jesus in their lives - will be pruned. What is this fruit John is talking about? It refers to the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. 

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

Did you see the second fruit in this list? Joy! Being close to Jesus and listening to His commands brings us joy and glory to God. 

Heart 

We must remember the part of the story when the Gardener says if a branch doesn’t produce fruit, it must be pruned. The Gardener seems harsh but pruning is necessary. If there is a branch that isn’t producing fruit or flowers, it is not healthy, and we must remove the unhealthy parts of the branch that are harming it to help it get healthy so it can produce fruit for the vine. I think about my zinnia plants. When they get done blooming I pinch off the blooms for they are no longer producing a flower. It makes them look bare but soon afterward new buds shoot forth to fill in that new space with many new flowers. Our Heavenly Father wants us to be a blooming branch with lots of beautiful fruit – like joy! Jesus is the supplier of all we need to thrive and produce fruit. 

Hands 

So how can we produce fruit for our vine (Jesus)? First, we should want to be strong healthy branches for our vine. To be healthy and produce good fruits, we need to be attached to the Vine. We can do nothing off or away from the vine. We must get our strength and purpose from the Vine, Jesus, and so we must remain in Jesus’s presence - seeking His plan over our own and asking Him to grow the fruit of the Spirit so we can serve Him. He gives us joy when we stay close to Him! 

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, today we acknowledge that You are our great Gardener. We thank You for providing a wonderful vine (Jesus)! Lord, sometimes we think we can do it without You, supply our own wisdom or strength, but the parable of the vine and the branch shows us that is not true. We need Jesus to provide us with everything we need to live a God-honoring life. Thank you for showing us that when we live our lives for You, we produce great fruit! Help us never give up doing great things for You. You are an amazing God and thank You for supplying us with joy when we are living our lives for You! In Jesus’s name, Amen.