Fruit bearers

I was reading this morning in John, chapter 15. This is the place where Jesus says, "I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener. 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."

I've read this so many times, but like other things I've read in the Word recently, I'm noticing so many things that I've never seen before.

In today's reading, I noticed two little words that either just suddenly -POP- magically appeared in my Bible, or God just finally opened my eyes to them. (I'm guessing it's the latter.) "In me." Jesus said, "He cuts off every branch IN ME that bears no fruit".

Of course the passage is also about remaining in Jesus, because if we are unattached from the vine we will eventually dry up and, like a dead vine, only be worthy of being thrown into the trash. I've read and heard this repeatedly over the years and I get that.

But those two little words - "in me". That's what stopped me in my tracks this morning.

He's not talking about the lost here; the ones who are already off on their own and not attached to the true vine. He's talking about the branches that are IN HIM. He will prune those that ARE bearing fruit, so that they will bear even MORE fruit. Those that are not bearing fruit, even if they are still IN him, still consider themselves to be in Christ, if they bear no fruit they will be cut off. Just like the branches that are not attached to him at all?

Hmm.

That's going to take some chewing on today.

I've been considering "fruit" a lot over the last couple days. Yesterday I was chatting with a brother in Christ who lives in Georgia. He mentioned about some watermelon that the Japanese have developed, that grow to be square. I googled it, and found some interesting things about these square watermelon. They are cultivated to be square so that they fit better in the small Japanese refridgerators. They look very lovely on the outside. Green, nicely striped. All the same size. And square. But there are some problems. First of all, they are extremely expensive. About $200 US per watermelon. They are expensive because they don't naturally grow that way-- they have to be maintained as they are growing to become square. Secondly, they aren't fruity. They don't taste good, so most Japanese only have them for decoration. Their natural purpose, to produce fruit good for consumption, has been lost in the process of being fit into a shape for which the watermelon was not designed.

Which leads to the question -- have we, as fruit-bearers of Christ, been growing in the most productive way we were designed to grow? Are we as "fruity" (haha) as we should be, dripping like an in-season, just-picked natural, organic (often mis-shaped and with ugly imperfections) watermelon, with the irresistable flavor of the watermelon vine from which we should be growing? Or have we, through convenience and the traditions of humanity, made ourselves pretty on the outside, all shiny and square, and convenient in packaging, all the while ignoring the fact that on the inside we are only fit to be used as decoration?