| “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” |
| —John 15:8 |
As the Season of Lent draws to a close, we continue to celebrate the birth of our Savior as a baby in Bethlehem. And, we celebrate the reality of His second coming. In doing so, we remember the reason why Jesus came to earth.
I want you to imagine with me for a moment that you are a farmer. Can you do that? Of course you can. And, on your farm you have a very large field. Your field stretches from way over there to way over here. All through this very large field you have planted fruit trees.
Now the intense hard work of planting those fruit trees was only the beginning. Starting in the very early days of spring, you had to put fertilizer around those trees. You had to make certain the trees had enough water. You had to carefully remove any weeds that might grow up around the trees and steal nourishment away from them. You had to work very hard over many months. All through the summer months and into the fall, you had to care for those trees in the hope that when the time of harvest came they would produce beautiful, juicy, delightfully tasting fruit.
Now imagine, if you were that farmer and you went out into the field at harvest time expecting to find fruit, that the first tree you came to had not one piece of fruit on it—not any fruit whatsoever. Why, you would look that tree up and down. You would move branches aside. But no matter where you looked, no fruit.
So you would move on to the next tree. You would look up and down, move branches, but—wait a minute—no fruit. Hey, what’s going on? At the third tree, no fruit. At the fourth tree, no fruit. Not one tree in all of your orchard had fruit. What a terrible disappointment. All that work, and nothing to show for your effort.
Please note Jesus’ words, found in John 15:1-9:
1 “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 so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also 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.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”
In this passage, Jesus tells us that we have to make certain our lives do not become like trees that do not bear fruit. We have to respond to the love of the Christ that occupies our hearts, through the in-dwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, by living out that God-breathed love in our service to others.
Through acts of kindness, by always doing what we know is right, by sharing what we have with people in need, we show that Christ’s love lives in the depths of our hearts.
We have to always remember that because God loves us so much, He sent His Son Jesus to be our Savior. Our response to this great act of God’s mercy, grace, and love is to make certain we show His love to the people with whom we come in contact.
Every time we say a kind word to someone, we show them Christ’s love. Every time we give someone less fortunate than we are a part of what God has given us, we show them Christ’s love. Every time we tell someone that “Jesus loves them, too,” we show them His love.
