"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ²He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. ³You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." (John 15:1-4, NIV)

     I do not think it is possible to stress enough the importance of "The Vine and the Branches", found in the first part of John 15. Within this passage, Jesus gives us the very foundation for a successful ministry, as well as a warning from those who fall away and do not remain in Him.

     This passage is opened with Jesus' statement "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." (John 15:1-2). In this allegory, we are the branches, Christ is the true vine, and the fruit we bear is our ministry. In other words, fruitfulness in ministry comes through Christ Jesus alone. Without Jesus as the center of our ministry, we couldn't possibly be ministers who bear fruit, because a branch couldn't possibly be fruitful if it was not attached to the plant! We also notice that any branch that does not bear fruit will be cut off, but the branches which do bear fruit are pruned to become even more fruitful.

     In the second half of verse 5, Jesus states: "If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5b). Simply put: if we remain in Christ, we will bear much fruit; and if we do not remain in Christ, we will be fruitless. We remember from verse 2 that the branches who do not bear fruit are cut off from the vine, and when we put both verses together, we find that branches are cut off when they do not produce fruit, and that branches do not produce fruit only if they do not remain in Christ.

     As for those who do produce fruit, they will be pruned so that they may become even more fruitful. A quick study of the Greek shows us that the word used for "pruned" in verse 2 my also be translated to "cleans". What Christ is telling us in the second half of verse 2 is that those who bear fruit will be pruned (or cleansed) in order to bear more fruit. Sometimes the pruning process may be a painful one for the plant, but the end result is that the branch is then capable of bearing more fruit. The exact same holds true when God prunes us.

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