Jesus is the True Vine
By The Holy Spirit and James Calvin Carey IV
from the Book Simple Saints Becoming Divine
Then Jesus said, “ I am the true vine, and my Father takes care of the vineyard. He removes every one of my branches that don't produce fruit. He also prunes every branch that does produce fruit to make it produce more fruit.
“You are already clean because of what I have told you. Live in me, and I will live in you.
Picture in your mind a grapevine with three sturdy branches the shape of a cross, with the first branch being labeled “ Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength” and the second branch being labeled “ Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” The Lord said if we obey these two commandments that they fulfill all the rest. If we truly love God and our neighbors we cannot steal from our neighbors or hurt them in any way. To really explain how much we should love each other, the Lord even asked us to “Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.” This makes up the third branch that creates the Cross. The last commandment the Lord gave us was “ Love each other as I have loved you, by this means they will know you are my disciples.”
Now I want you to imagine smaller branches attached to the three sturdy main branches, these smaller branches are labeled with the 12 fruits of the Holy Spirit that are found in the Latin Bible. Charity (love), joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control and chastity. These branches are attached to the main branches.
The first main branch is labeled love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. has the smaller branches of love, joy, faithfulness, chastity, and modesty attached to it. The second branch which asks us to love our neighbor as ourselves has the branches of kindness, goodness, and generosity attached to it. The third branch labeled love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, has the smaller branches labeled self-control, peace, and patience attached to it. The Fruits of the Spirit are the character traits the Lord wants us to have that produce good fruit. The Holy Spirit has all of the character traits that Jesus has because it is his Spirit. The Fruit of the Holy Spirit are the kind of character trait that produces good fruit. When we have these character traits, we are living within Jesus’ Spirit and Jesus Spirit is living in us. We are able to express unconditional love for each other like Jesus shows, through His grace(unmerited power and favor).
There are character traits that do not produce good fruit. On the tree that has good and bad(evil) branches, they are hate, anger, lust, greed, witchcraft, envy, pride, gossip, sexual immorality and any other bad character traits. On this tree, these are the branches that do not produce good fruit. They are from our corrupt, fallen nature and can be found in Galatians 5:19!
Jesus is unconditional Love!
We are all going through a sanctification process. We are becoming Divine! In Latin the letter (I) sometimes sounds like (E), so it is like saying De-vine. For example: when a person gets a divorce, what they are doing is separating from their spouse. When a person De-ices a window, what they are doing is removing the ice, and when you divide something you are separating it into two. What God is doing through grace with all of us is removing(separating) the branches that do not produce good fruit. He is removing the hate, anger, lust, greed, gossip, etc. When all of the bad branches are pruned away, what we are left with is the Vine which is Jesus. We become an image of Jesus Christ who is unconditional love. Jesus Christ is The Vine and Jesus Christ is Divine!
When the Vine has good and bad branches on it, it is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil which is also the source of ORIGINAL SIN. This sin was inherited from Adam and Eve. We are born with this sin. After our branches are pruned, we become an image of the Tree of Life. Jesus Christ is the true vine is the Tree of Life! Jesus Christ is unconditional love. At any time, we have a choice to make whether we are going to eat from the Tree of Life which gives us eternal life or eat from the Tree of Knowledge which leads to death.
God rewards us for being Divine
Jesus is the key to eternal life, and as we mature into a spiritual image of Him(Divine) we start to want the things our Father wants for us so that we may ask anything of the Father and if it is in his will for us to have, He will provide it for us.
John 15:16 (TLB) “You didn't choose me! I chose you! I appointed you to go and produce lovely fruit always so that no matter what you ask for from the Father, using my name he will give it to you.”
When we continually eat from the Tree of Life and have the character of Jesus Christ and live in his Spirit, we can ask anything of the Father in Jesus’ name and if it is His will He will provide it for us in order to further the Kingdom of God.
Remember a fruit tree does not produce fruit right away. It goes through a growing season to produce fruit. In that season there is good weather and bad, however, if that tree is well-rooted it will always produce lovely fruit. If we are well rooted in Christ and Love, we will also produce lovely fruit no matter what kind of trails of life we go through.
God is preparing us for greatness
God is preparing us for greatness, he is preparing us to spend eternity with him, but he is also preparing us for the promises and missions for the Kingdom of God he has put in our hearts. God wants you to hit the ground running meaning he wants us to be prepared for whatever he is going to bless us with. In our season which is determined by God, we are being prepared to be good stewards of the gift God has promised us. We each have to ask ourselves what that preparedness looks like? What is God asking me to do in order that I can be a good steward of the missions and promises He has given us? What do I need to accomplish to be a good steward of the gift God is going to bless me with(patience, love, a degree, finance management)?
What the Fruits of the Spirit are not!
The Fruits of the Spirit are not heavy burdens that we can never live up to. They are ways and a guide to living in his Spirit and loving unconditionally like Jesus loves us. We will never be perfect here on earth...never, However we can strive to be perfect through grace in love and compassion. When we do this we fulfill the Law
Love fulfills the law
Romans 13:8(NAB) “ Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another for the one who loves another fulfills the law.”
Healing of the Nations
Revelations 22 (AMP)
“Then he showed me the river whose water gives Life, sparkling like crystal, flowing out from throne of God and of the Lamb. Through the middle of the broad way of the city; also on either side of the river was the Tree of Life with its twelve varieties of fruit, yielding each month it's fresh crop, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing and restoration of the nations.”
The water that gives life is the Holy Spirit, we are the leaves and the fruit is our character of unconditional love, God will use us as vessels filled with the Holy Spirit to heal our Nations, States, Cities, Neighborhoods, and Schools. We will also have the right to enter into heaven.
Revelations 22:14 (TNAB) “ Blessed are they who wash their robes so as to have the right to the Tree of Life and enter the city through its gates.”
Proverbs 11:30 (NIV)
“The fruit of the righteous is a Tree of Life, and the one who is wise saves lives.”
God made us in his own image and he wants us to be like him and behave as he did as Jesus(The word made flesh). The Holy Spirit Jesus spirit is our guide and helper in becoming Divine.
Before Christians were called Christians the movement was called The Way (meaning the way to salvation). John 14:6 (TLB) Jesus told him” I am the Way-yes and the Truth and the Life. No one can get to the Father except by means of me.” We have to enable the Holy Spirit to work in our lives by practicing living in the fruits of the Spirit. When you practice you increase your strength and resilience. In gardening when you prune a plant or cut it back what happens is that plant grows bigger and the branches produce healthier fruit! We have free will and a choice to make whether we are going to eat from the Tree of Life or eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and Evil. The Choice is yours!
Please use this teaching as a guide to enable God to work in your life and not to judge others.
James 3:1(TLT) Dear Brothers, Don't be too eager to tell others their faults, for we all make many mistakes; and when we teachers of religion, who should know better, do wrong our punishment will be greater than it would be for others.
Grace!
A reminder of God’s Grace(God’s unmerited Power and favor)!
I want you to realize that you will make many mistakes in your walk with Christ, but I want you to also realize that God will use these mistakes to help mold you into a mature image of Himself through grace!
So please don't let anyone or yourself feel guilt, or condemned for making mistakes, just continue to practice through faith and grace growing into an image of Him(Christ)!
Jesus has poured out His love for you and in you and me. This unconditional love, unmerited favor, and power that lives within us as believers are His Grace through the Holy Spirit. So even though we are not perfect, we have Christ who is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit that now lives within us, who is perfect!
However, Christ also loves those whom we may not love and who like us are not perfect( who occasionally walk in their corrupt nature(their flesh)). He knows that when we are not expressing His love through grace to others, that we could be potentially pushing others away from Him and eternal life! So through His Spirit and grace that lives within us, He has given us a model(an example) of the love He wants us to show to others through His grace. When we show His grace to those who have hurt us this model(example) of unconditional love shown, without merit is called mercy! This unconditional love draws humanity to Christ!
Paul gives us discernment(a way to determine) what God’s love and abiding in the Holy Spirit looks like in Galatians 5:22 and he also gives us a glimpse of what living in our Corrupt nature(our flesh) looks like in Galatians 5:19! Please practice His love through grace!
Love(abiding in the Spirit) = love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control!
Corrupt Fallen Nature(flesh) = strife, jealousy, fits of anger, sexual immorality, divisions, envy, hate & other acts that are not of God!
