Fruit Growing 101 || John 17:17 || Weekend Wind-Down #29

Welcome to Week 29 of our “Weekend Wind-Down” series. This series is where we take a piece of Scripture, get its background information, and dig deeper into it to see what the Bible says about it and what we need to walk away with.

Our scripture focus today is John 17:17, which says: 

17 Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. 

John wrote this Gospel to conclusively prove that Jesus is the Son of God and that all who believe in him will have eternal life. John is in the middle of explaining the death and resurrection of Jesus here. Jesus is teaching the disciples how to continue believing even after he dies. His disciples still struggled. We need to accept the eyewitness testimonies of the disciples told us in this Gospel. Now that we have some background information, what should we walk away with? 

We will focus on our purity and holiness through believing and following Scripture. What do I mean by this? We’ll discuss keeping our thoughts and actions focused on God and how God chose us to do his will by understanding what Scripture teaches us and how we can follow it today. I’ve talked about the difference between our decision to accept salvation for life and the daily repentance that we should do. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we acknowledge that our sins are forgiven by faith through the sacrifice Jesus committed on the cross. We no longer have to follow the Old Testament laws to follow God because Jesus came to fulfill the law. Jesus tore the curtain in the Temple in half to allow all people to go to God willingly and create the intimate relationship that we need and God wants. Accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior is a one-time decision to receive eternal life, but we must repent daily. We must look at God’s word and ensure its teachings are appropriately laid on our hearts and minds as we go about our day. Why? Because Scripture points out where we sin, motivates us to confess our sin, renew our relationship with God by prayer, and guides us back to the path God wants us to share his grace and mercy to the world. 

I almost want to end it there because there’s SO much in that we should meditate on, but God gave more wisdom connected to this passage. We’ll begin with John 15:2-3, which says: 

2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 

3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message. 

Jesus distinguishes between two kinds of pruning: cutting off and cutting back. What is said here? Cutting off is the Greek word airó (ah’-ee-ro), meaning to take away. Cutting back is the Greek word kathairó (kath-ah’-ee-ro), meaning to remove undesirable elements. Fruitful branches get cut back to promote growth. They get everything off that could hinder the growth of new fruit to ensure it thrives. God prunes us as well to promote growth. I know this can get into a “God causes bad things to happen” argument. That’s not what I’m saying, nor do I believe it. When we’re stuck in situations that could end up good or bad, how we respond is how we get pruned. God will trim away what we don’t decide and reinforce the growth of what we do decide. We need to be mindful of what we decide. We should respond in a way that grows the fruit of the spirit. This fruit is what Jesus is mentioning here.

The branches that don’t bear these fruits are cut off at the trunk because they don’t provide value for the tree or can negatively affect the other branches. “Are you saying God cuts people from the Kingdom of God?” Yes and no. God is available for all people. All get welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven. Those who claim to be in the Kingdom already but are not sowing the fruit of the spirit get cut off. People either don’t bear the fruit or are hindering others from bearing it. I see this as people who use their fruit disguised as the Spirit’s fruit to manipulate others into worldly agendas. Many people claim to be professional fruit growers but have a special fertilizer to help grow it or claim that their fruit grows quicker and can teach you how to do so. It’s these people that get removed. Our fruit, as Christians, comes from Jesus and the teachings of Scripture. We learn how to grow our fruit there and watch it grow in practice. 

Thank you for joining me for this Weekend Wind-Down. We talked about the holiness and purity we have in following God and learning the scriptures, ensuring that our fruit is growing healthily based on the teachings of John. Let me close with prayer.

Father God, we thank you for your Divine teaching that comes from the Scripture and our application of it. Thank you for sending your son to teach us how to properly apply the teachings to our lives. Please help us to get it right. Teach us how to grow our fruits properly and point us in the direction needed if it’s not. It’s in your name, we pray. Amen.