Cut Off or Taken Up

God continues to teach me from John 15. In verse 2, Jesus says this, "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 always struggled with this verse because this sounds like those Christians who aren't producing fruit are cut away from the vine and it is thrown away. If that was the case, how then do Baptist's reconcile our "Once saved, always saved" belief?

During my devotional time this morning, Bruce Wilkinson's book shed some excellent light on this. The Greek word that is translated "cut off" or "take off" can actually be better translated as "to take up." It is the same Greek word that was used when Jesus told the lame man to, and I paraphrase, "Take up your bed..."

The idea here is that the branch is not actually cut off and discarded. It is far to valuable to do that. Instead, the idea is that a branch that has strayed off the trellis and gotten down on the ground where it has become dirty and diseased is gently lifted up by the vinedresser, cleaned us and reattached to the trellis so that it can become a productive branch again.

We are the branch. We have a tendency to stray away from God and get caught up in the world where we become spiritually dirty. But instead of God cutting us off because we've strayed away from Him, He gently reaches down and encourages us to return to Him. When we return in repentance, He gently cleans us up and moves us back to His "trellis" where we can begin to produce MUCH fruit, as I talked about in the last post.

Aren't you glad that God never gives up on us? The world will give up on you and Satan will try to convince you that you have messed up to bad to ever be productive again. But God always allows us to return in repentance and He restores us and encourages us to be productive in His Kingdom once again.