The Vine & The Branches

Picture credit to my earthly
 father, Robert Allen.

I was reminded today of the analogy my old boss, Bonham Bazeley, would give to demonstrate why you should prune a fruit tree and what happens when you do. He would tell you to imagine a hose pipe connected to a tap. When the tap is turned on water flows from the end of the hosepipe just as sap flows through a plant causing the tip to grow. If you then make slits in the hose pipe to represent the tight, dormant fruit buds along the stem, the water, initially will continue to flow from the end of the pipe. Put a bung in the end of the hosepipe and water will then be forced out through the slits - this is what happens when you prune the end of the branch so stopping the flow of sap to the tip and pushing it into the buds instead making them grown out.

In our house group we have been discussing the vine and the branches as Jesus talked about in John 15 and how God prunes those branches to produce fruit. Consider then that we are dormant buds and Jesus in the main stem with His feet firmly planted in the good soil. The Holy Spirit is represented by the sap and God is the gardener who comes along and lops of dead or unproductive branches that do not produce any fruit. The Holy Spirit comes and wakens us dormant buds and brings us to life so we burst forth bearing lots of beautiful fruit.

The process of being pruned seems painful at the time but God is the perfect gardener and knows what needs cutting out of us to produce fruit for Him.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit." John 15:1-2