Good morning my friends, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time of day it is for you and whatever part of the world you were in.

Welcome, it is time for us to get our minds aligned with the truth of God as it is represented

for us in the scriptures.

We've been looking at John Chapter 14 and my goodness we haven't even got past the first

four verses in the last three

episodes because there's just so much there. Jesus is teaching his disciples about

this concept of us remaining connected to him in a vibrant life-giving relationship.

And the illustration he's using to get the point across is that of a vine like a grapevine. Picture a grapevine

in your mind. This central vine that comes up out of the ground and coming off of it are branches from which the leaves grow and

from which the fruit is produced. Jesus is using that imagery. He's saying he is

the vine. We are the branches. Let's go back to John 15 and let me read those

four verses for you again. He says I am the true vine and my father is the vine

dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away.

And every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

Abide in me and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine.

Neither can you unless you abide in me.

So what I want to focus on today is this issue of pruning.

Pruning, it's kind of an interesting concept.

The gardener, in this case a vine dresser,

is the term

the term that Jesus uses for it, who he says is his father. The vine dresser cuts away parts of the plant,

...