"By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples." (John 15:8)

A theme found throughout the Testaments is that of bearing fruit. The Lord wants us to be productive. He charges us to be fruitful and multiply. The ancient Israelites had to work hard for survival. Not only is farming, their primary occupation, difficult labor, but following the commandments of Jehovah often required specific sacrifices and duties. In the New Testament the Lord often linked salvation with our effort.

"For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works" (Matthew 16:27).

And not producing fruit was a curse. The barren fig tree was condemned, for it was not doing what the Lord required of it.

This theme of productiveness can also be found throughout the created universe. The Lord did not create anything that is without value or use. The fertile soil of the earth is the seed-bed from which vegetation springs. Plants serve for food, and constantly seem to be producing many more seeds than can possibly come to fruition. Animal life also strives to reproduce itself, to create more of its own. The urge to grow, to build, is universal.

We should not be surprised by this. For it is but a reflection of the Lord's nature. His love is the most productive love of all. It is always reaching out, striving to create, to produce what is good. This is why the universe was created. This is why we were born. Our existence is evidence of His love.

And to us He holds out the opportunity to join with Him in being productive. He is the vine, we can be the branches. From Him we can bear much fruit. We can be touched by His love, and share it with others. We can affect all those around us, producing in them happiness and joy.

How do we become branches of the Lord? We begin by following in His path. We cannot be offshoots of His unless what we do comes from Him. He has given us the Word (the way, the truth, and the life), that we might know what is required of us. As He said in John, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love....This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:10, 12).

Heeding His Word means walking in His ways. We cannot very well touch others with love if we ourselves are not acting the ways of love. Can we in anger, command someone to be good? Can we from contempt look down on others and say all men are brothers? This is what the Lord commanded in Ezekiel, saying:

"If [a person] has walked in My statutes and kept My judgments faithfully - he is just; he shall surely live!" (Ezekiel 18:9)

Good fruit is not produced by diseased plants or trees. To be the Lord's branches requires us to keep His commandments, so that His love might exist in us to be shared with others.

But how are we to produce the fruit of loving our neighbors? The Lord had given us the way of serving others, being useful to them. As He said, "Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant" (Matthew 20:26-27).

If we consider it, it is almost impossible to avoid being of service to others in this world. The Lord established a system that virtually demands we devote much of our lives to others. The only way to avoid serving others is to live separated from all others, not receiving anything from them, and not giving them anything in return. Such a hermit's life is almost inconceivable. Even Johnny Appleseed, who stayed as far away from civilization as possible, was of tremendous service by planting apple trees and spreading copies of Heavenly Doctrines of the New Church.

The reality for us is that we will serve others. As children and students, we are under the supervision of others who give us much to do. As young adults we seek employment to earn a living. As spouses we will care for our mates and do household duties. As parents we will take care of the many needs of our children. As friends we will lend a hand to our peers. As senior citizens we will be the anchors of family and cultural values. At whatever age, the Lord would have us be of use to others, branches of His vine, bearing much fruit.

The alternative to being useful is not very attractive. Imagine what it would be like to be deprived of the opportunity to serve others? Without work to do, would we not begin focusing more and more upon ourselves? Would not the frustration break out in anger towards others? Is this not why long hospital stays, unemployment, and retirement without other interests are so devastating? Is not part of the pain for a couple having difficulty conceiving a child, the fact that they are being denied the opportunity of serving as parents? And for the single person, the lack of being useful in a marriage relationship detracts from the service he or she might be. Although the Lord insures that any one can be useful to others, when we are denied the possibility of being useful in even one way, there is a sense of loss, of incompleteness.

There are numerous ways to be of use in this world. One way is by our occupations. Be they chairman of the board or janitor at an all night cafe, the time we spend at our jobs is a way to serve our neighbors, to love them. Another critical way to be of use is in our families. As we relate to our spouse, raise our children, and manage our homes, we are providing a tremendous benefit to our neighbors. Not only are we establishing a foundation for society in our marriages, we are preparing young people to be productive members of society and angels in heaven. These two uses, formal occupations and home life, are perhaps the most important uses we can do, for we spend the most time with them during our lives on earth. As we perform them to the best of our abilities, we are bearing the fruit which makes us the Lord's disciples.

Some of the other uses that the Lord calls upon us to do involve our responsibilities in our communities and our church. To love our neighbors requires us to take an informed interest in what is going on, in our local community and in the world community. Although only some will become directly involved, all can form opinions and participate in electing representatives.

We can also be useful in the setting of our church. Here we have wide-ranging opportunities to enable people to worship their God. From serving on committees or contributing money, to just being present for Sunday morning worship, there are innumerable ways to become branches of the Lord's vine, bringing forth much fruit.

Now, it may seem that all we must do is follow the commandments and do certain good acts and we automatically become angelic. Since it is relatively easy to avoid breaking laws and perform certain actions, all should be saved, right? Well, not exactly. Being useful involves something more than mere adherence to laws and performing our duties. For a person can be very selfishly inclined and do these things. Someone could devote a great deal of energy to serving the neighbor so all will think him a "good" person.

This is of providence, for the Lord insures that all people, both those who truly care for others and those who primarily care for themselves, can serve others. As His rain falls on the just and the unjust, so this world is designed that all will be useful.

But for the fruit we bear to be nourishing, and not rotten within, our motives must stem from the Lord also. Being of use requires that the good we do for our neighbors be good in both essence and form.

How do we bear good fruit? By quietly and secretly shunning evils as sins. As we periodically look at our lives, both what we are doing with our time and our inner thoughts and feelings, we are to identify whatever seems to come from hell. If we place more importance on the things of this world, or our own self image, than on sincerely caring for others, we can see something is wrong.

Perhaps we will recognize that we are working primarily for the money or prestige we receive. Perhaps we will not take a particular job if it will not increase our income enough, or we shy away from aspects of our occupation that will not result in others praising us. What should we do? How do we shun these selfish motivations? Recognizing them as wrong and asking the Lord's help is a start. Then one way to shun these evils is to force ourselves not to think about how much we are making. Perhaps we might also seek for some mundane jobs which are not likely to bring us to the attention of our supervisor.

Whatever we do, it is important that we not give up our jobs. One reason the Lord has provided so many uses is that we continue working even if our motivations are selfish. No young person entering the job market is immune from desiring a large salary so he can spend money freely. He should not seek a low paying job to punish himself, for it is by the very means of working that the Lord can gradually purge away an orientation for self and replace it with a genuine concern for others.

In all the ways we are useful to others, from occupations to child rearing, the Lord can cause us to bear fruit as we become ever more sensitive to what is of hell within us, and attempt to change. Being useful, even if our motives are not pure at first, teaches us, trains us, to care for others. As we perform as well as we can in our roles as friends, spouses, parents, and employees, then the Lord can gradually cause us to see and appreciate the fruit that can be produced from His vine. Love for the neighbor grows as we learn to care by serving others and not just self.

It is not too surprising that most of our sense of self worth comes from our jobs and our home life: where we can be of most use. As we put away excessive concern for ourselves and the world, we grow ever stronger as branches on the Lord's vine. As this happens, our sense of joy and happiness can increase many fold. For as we are truly useful to others we are participating in the Lord's work. We are becoming angels for we are doing His will. It is His love, His happiness, that we are sharing and thereby making our own. With Him as our vine we can bear much fruit, and become His disciples indeed.

This explanation was first giving as a sermon following the new year.

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten: and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” Psalm 90:10

We are at the threshold of a new year. What it holds for us we cannot know. But we can look back upon the year that is passed, and see the Lord’s goodness to us.

World cooperation is a slogan of the day. More and more we are coming to realize that the day of isolation is passed and that what happens in the world at large affects us as individuals, and affects the future. We do not live to ourselves alone. In this larger field also we can look back and see the loving providence of the Lord, leading nations out of sorrows and conflicts, and causing them to hope for better thing to come.

If we can see that “underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27), leading men by the way that the Lord alone knows to be best, and if we have been brought to a deeper trust in Him, the year that is closing could have brought no greater blessing.

The Psalm from which our text is taken sets before us in a most striking way the weakness of man, the shortness of his life, in relation to the infinite power and eternity of the Lord. Man is like “the grass which groweth up. In the morning in flourisheth and groweth up: in the evening it is cut down and withereth.” “The days of our years are threescore years and ten,” but God “is from everlasting to everlasting.” In His sight, a thousand years are but as a watch in the night. He is the one source of life to the entire universe. Whatever life we have is His gift to us, and not our own.

“So,” the Psalmist writes, “teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

There is always an impressiveness in the passing of the years. They slip by with such swiftness, each one seeming shorter than the last. It is not for the purpose of casting a shadow over life that this Psalm was give. It is not to make us look forward with dread that we are told that the gates to the eternal world are near. The message is for the happiness of childhood, for the enthusiasm of youth, and for the enjoyment of our labors in the world. It is to help us to regard and to love natural things in their relation to higher things. To see them so is not to rob them of their charm, but to fill them with deeper purpose and greater happiness.

The Psalm is a prayer, a prayer that the Lord will teach us to number our days, that we may see their relation to spiritual life, that we may not be misled by our own shortsighted view, and that we may learn the true relation between this life and heaven from Him Who created us for heaven, to Whom there is no yesterday and tomorrow. From the Divine point of view the few days of earthly life are nothing if they do not prepare for the eternal life in the heavens.

The prayer “teach us to number our days” does not mean that we should realize how short our life here is compared with the infinite Divine life, but is a petition to the Lord asking Him to enlighten us to see the nature and quality of the states through which we are passing, so that we may use them wisely and live as He would have us live, that we may attain the true measure of adulthood. It is this that is spiritually meant when we pray, “So teach us to number our days.”

Our text reads, “The days of our years are threescore years and ten.” From this Scripture seventy years has come to be regarded as the natural span of life, and when one has passed the seventieth year, we say that he is living on borrowed time. But this is not the spiritual meaning of the text. It really tells of a week of labor in which heavenly states are laid up culminating is a Sabbath of rest. It calls to mind the seven days of creation by which a heavenly spirit is built up within us till life’s work is ended in victory over evil, and the soul enters into rest from temptations.

This is the meaning of the seventy years as the measure of person’s life. Our life here, whether long or short, is still seventy years if we are faithful in learning and keeping the Commandments. The promise, “Your days shall be long,” is not necessarily a promise of many earthly years, but of years few or many filled with the life of heaven. “Your days shall be multiplied, and the days of your children, as the days of heaven upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 11:21).

For some the hours of labor are long, and the burden of the day heavy; for others life seems easier; but however long or short, hard or easy our years, they are the way which the Lord sees best for us to the eternal peace of heaven.

There is only one thing that blasts life and makes it really too short: that is sin, absorption in self. That alone destroys its happiness and usefulness, and makes it of short measure.

Whether the years are seven or seventy, life may be full. The Lord’s life on earth was thirty-four years. It was not cut off in its prime. He left no work undone; He said of His work, “It is finished” (John 19bb30 ). His earthly life was full and complete. He had overcome the world, and could say, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27).

Earthly life is short only if its opportunities are neglected. The days of every faithful life are seventy years. The preparation for one may be short in calendar years; another’s preparation may include the labor and burden of many years. Still to each there is nothing lacking necessary to the attainment of heaven, for the Lord knows what is best for each. Everyone is given the means to the attainment of heavenly life.

This thought is expressed in the Psalm, for it adds, “and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow.” Each extension of life, while it brings its blessings, brings also its temptations, its labor and sorrow, and in seventy or eighty years we are no nearer heaven than in seven or eight, unless the tasks which long life brings are faithfully borne. However great our strength of mind and body, we are not so near to heaven as the little child unless we meet faithfully the responsibilities which such strength brings.

There are temptations which come with every year of life, with every gift of ability, with every gain of worldly wealth or position. These are the burden and heat of the day that are meant by the eighty years to which the life of some extends, bringing apparent strength, but accompanying temptation and trial.

This psalm teaches us how each life can be full, how we can number our days. It enables us to see that if opportunities are used, every life is long and leads to the peace of heaven. It teaches us that though some lives seem specially favored in years, in strength, in worldly possessions, yet the Lord’s ways are just and equal. The adult’s way to heaven is through labor, the child’s through innocence.

Whatever length of days is given us, it is that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Life is too short to be wasted in anxiety and worry. It is too short for envy and revengeful thoughts. It is too short to be wasted in unkindness, or in striving for that bread which satisfieth not. When we see and seek to realize the Lord’s purposes for us, we are applying our hearts unto wisdom. We cannot know the future, nor should we desire to know it. But we are told how we can make our way prosperous during the year that we are about to enter, and during every year. It is by reading the Word, and taking heed to do according to what is written therein.

The Lord says, “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5). So close is He to us, vitally connected to us as the vine to its branches. The purpose of the vine is that the branches shall bear fruit. And if we realize that we can do nothing without Him, we shall realize also that He needs us. This will give a new dignity and meaning to life.

In the new year that is about to dawn let us look to the Lord, in full confidence that He rules all things, that our individual souls and the whole world are in His hands. And as we put our trust in Him and seek to do His will, He will give us that true peace and quietness of soul which the world cannot give, and which the world cannot take away.

Additional readings: Joshua 1, John 14:1-17