Pick Up That Branch

     In John 15, Jesus uses an illustration of a vine to teach us about our relationship with Him.  He tells us that He is the vine, and that we are the branches.  He also gives us the progression that He would like to see in our lives.  He tells us that He wants us to go from producing no fruit, to producing much fruit.  He begins with what would be most important to the person who owns the vine, and that is the branches that are not bearing any fruit.  If a branch is not bearing fruit, then it is not profitable.
     Verse 2 begins,  "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:"  Now the first thing that we need to pay attention to is those two words, "in me", because this branch is in contrast to those that are not in Him found in verse 5.  If you are in Him, but are not bearing fruit, He is not just going to throw you away, but instead He will pick you up.  There are branches on the vine that grow too close to the ground.  They get mud, dirt and filth all over their leaves and so they are unable to produce the fruit that they should.  When this happens, the caretaker of the vine comes along and picks this branch up off of the ground.  That is the meaning behind "taketh away" in verse number 2.  It means "to raise up, elevate, or lift up".
     When we aren't producing the fruit that God wants us to, He comes along and picks us up.  Many times in our lives we grow too close to the world, and we get the mud, dirt and filth of this world all over us, so that we no longer produce the fruit that we are supposed to produce.  The Bible is filled with people who at one time or another grew too close to the world.  David is a good example.  He grew close to the world and got the filth of adultery and murder all over him.  David needed God to pick him up.  What about you?  Are you growing too close to the world?  Have you gotten the filth of the world all over you?  Ask God to pick you up today.  In our next article, we will look at the second thing a caretaker does to a branch that is not producing fruit, and that is he cleans it off.