If we are in Christ, we are appointed to bear much fruit and our fruit will abide, remain.

What is fruit? What are we bearing?

I would define fruit as all the things the Lord produces through us. The branch does not produce fruit. It just offers itself to hold the fruit as it grows, and then holds it out to offer it to someone else to be blessed by or to be planted to produce more fruit.

Our fruit can be the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Paul also calls the work he does in the churches “fruit.” He produces fruit among them. I guess, though, that fruit could be the fruit of the Spirit being produced in them because of his teaching.

We tend to think of a fruitful ministry as numbers. Jesus is after a quality, not a quantity, though He wants everyone to come into that quality of life, the life of the Spirit.

We can only do it by abiding in the vine. The branch can bear no fruit on its own. We can do nothing apart from Christ. We may be able to get “decisions for Christ” or get people joining the church, but we can’t change their hearts and produce the Spirit-life in them. It’s a work of God.

It only happens in connection to the vine, to Christ. He produces the fruit, and in order to help us do our job of producing more fruit, He prunes our branches. It looks and feels a whole lot like cutting off the branch. But the cut off part of the branch dies. That part is not of Christ. The part of the branch that remains, or abides, abiding in Christ, produces even more fruit.

We bring the Father glory by bringing much fruit. It’s also our proof that we belong to Christ and are His disciples. And we are friends of Jesus if we do what He commands.

What’s His command? That we love one another, that we lay our lives down for one another.

We’re told the Father will be able to do what we ask if we abide in Christ. Our abiding and our asking are all connected here to one thing: loving one another.

The greatest of these is love. Give over your life to God to love through you.