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.  John 15:2 

 

Dr Michael Youssef, who was born in the Middle East, says the branches Jesus talked about cutting off are ‘sucker-shoots’. These tiny offshoots literally drain and disable the vine so that it produces leaves - but no fruit! What are the ‘sucker-shoots’ in your life? What’s keeping you from being fruitful? You can be sure they didn’t spring up overnight. Nobody makes a single leap from the pinnacle of commitment to the swamp of carnality. No, it’s a slow downward spiral based on wrong choices. Unless you stop it, this week’s wrong choice won’t seem quite so bad next week. In fact, a month from now it might not seem like a bad choice at all. A famous sculptor was asked how he carved a lion’s head out of a big chunk of marble. 'I just chipped away everything that didn’t look like a lion’s head,' he replied. That’s how God works; He chips away at everything in us that doesn’t look like Christ: (a) our insensitivity to the needs of others (b) our drive for success at the expense of our family or our spiritual well being (c) our laziness and lack of personal discipline (d) _________ (you fill in the blank). ‘Sucker-shoots’ drain and disable us; that’s why God’s determined to remove them. Paul says, 'We... are being transformed... ' (2 Corinthians 3:18). God’s committed to it and nothing we can do will dissuade Him! He stays at it; He’s relentless. And He never runs out of creative ideas for bringing it about. Aren’t you glad?