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What is the Fruit in John 15:5?

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In John 15:5, Jesus says “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

What is the “fruit” that Jesus has in view here? Here is a helpful exposition of the text from DA Carson, from his The Gospel according to John:

There has been considerable dispute over the nature of the “fruit” that is envisaged [in this text]: the fruit, we are told, is obedience, or new converts, or love, or Christian character.

These interpretations are reductionistic. The branch’s purpose is to bear much fruit (v. 5), but the next verses show that this fruit is the consequence of prayer in Jesus’ name, and is to the Father’s glory (vv. 7, 8, 16).

This suggests that the “fruit” in the vine imagery represents everything that is the product of effective prayer in Jesus’ name, including obedience to Jesus’ commands (v. 10), experience of Jesus’ joy (v. 11 – as earlier his peace, 14:27), love for one another (v. 12), and witness to the world (vv. 16, 27).

This fruit is nothing less than the outcome of persevering dependence on the vine, driven by faith, embracing all of the believer’s life and the product of his witness.

Great Managers Reject the Notion that Trust Must be Earned

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Marcus Buckingham, from First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently:

And what of the notion that “trust must be earned”? Sensible though it may sound, great managers reject it.

They know that if, fundamentally, you don’t trust people, then there is no line, no point in time, beyond which people become suddenly trustworthy. Mistrust concerns the future. If you are innately skeptical of other people’s motives, then no amount of good behavior in the past will ever truly convince you that they are not just about to disappoint you. Suspicion is a permanent condition.

Of course, occasionally, a person will indeed let you down. But great managers, like Michael, the restaurant manager from the introduction, are wired to view this as the exception rather than the rule. They believe that if you expect the best from people, then more often than not the best is what you get.

Innate mistrust is probably vital for some roles — lawyering or investigative reporting, for example. But for a manager, it is deadly.

Unmanaged Time Often Flows Toward Your Weaknesses

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A good point from Gordon MacDonald in Ordering Your Private World:

Because I had not adequately defined a sense of mission in the early days of my work, and because I had not been ruthless enough with my weaknesses, I found that I normally invested inordinately large amounts of time doing things I was not good at, while the tasks I should have been able to do with excellence and effectiveness were preempted. . . .

So why did I spend almost 75 percent of my available time trying to administrate and relatively little time studying and preparing to preach when I was younger? Because unseized time will flow in the direction of one’s relative weaknesses. Since I knew I could preach an acceptable sermon with a minimum of preparation, I was actually doing less than my best in the pulpit. That is what happens when one does not evaluate this matter and do something drastic about it.

Getting the Little Stuff Done First May be Satisfying, But It's the Wrong Road

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Julie Morgenstern, in Never Check E-Mail In the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making Your Work Life Work:

Warming up your day by knocking off a bunch of quick, easy tasks is tempting, but it can provide you with a false sense of accomplishment.

The danger in this approach is that the bulk of your energy gets depleted over a bunch of insignificant tasks. First there’s email, then a couple of phone calls, then a meeting, then huddles with some direct reports and a quick sign-off on a project budget — then, guess what? It’s time for lunch!

To warm up after lunch, you start off with another round of email, then a client eats up your mid afternoon, and suddenly it’s 5 pm — and you never got around to, much less finished, the grant proposal — your day’s one-step-from-the-revenue-line priority. In fact, you can’t even remember what you did get done.

Solution: You must retrain yourself to choose the important over the quick, the tough over the easy, no matter how intimidating the project may be. Starting too far from the revenue line prevents you from producing the volume of revenue-generating work that your company actually relies on and pays you for.

Working from the bottom up puts you in a risky position — when that inevitable crisis appears, . . . how can you possibly handle it when you haven’t even gotten to your most important assignment yet!

Completely two or three tasks that directly make or save your company money far outweighs finishing twenty things that are three steps from the revenue line.