Words of Life: An Enduring Legacyનમૂનો

Legacy: Letting go.

Gardening can often seem counter-intuitive. Logic might suggest that bigger branches produce a higher harvest, and common sense might urge gardeners to protect fruit-bearing branches to maximize yield. Yet Jesus, like first-century vine-dressers and skilled gardeners throughout history, knows that neither of these assumptions is true. Branches that bear no fruit drain energy and nutrients from the rest of the plant, and cast shadows over the branches that have fruit-bearing potential. Even the cutting and pruning of healthy branches is necessary to remove elements that waste energy and provide direction, ultimately boosting the plant’s ability to bear fruit.

Today’s passage is rich with Old Testament imagery and allusion, particularly from Isaiah 5, which is a powerful song in which God likens his chosen people to a vineyard and laments that they have produced sour grapes instead of the good fruit he intended. By invoking this imagery, Jesus reminds his disciples not to repeat the mistake of their ancestors before them – losing sight of their primary purpose of bearing good fruit that brings glory to God. Anything that distracts from that must be cut off. The path to good and lasting fruit, it seems, requires removing the tangled branches that distract and drain.

What might be the things in our lives and in our corps that take up energy, but bear no fruit? Some of them might be obvious – the matters that we would label ‘sinful’; unhealthy activities like gossip or pride, which waste our energy and drain our God-given potential. Other things might not be inherently harmful, but in the long run, they are a distraction from our true purpose. A fruitful life, and a lasting legacy, necessitate letting go of anything that diverts energy from our ultimate purpose of living with God and bringing him glory. Sometimes, that means making difficult choices about our priorities.

What might I need to let go of today to prioritize my relationship with God?