A Fruitful Harvest: He prunes

It’s been some time  since my last post….summer has been busy!  So I want to review quickly the things I have talked about in this series before we go on.

The series is called “A Fruitful Harvest” and focuses on how God is the Master Gardener and how He works in us to bring about a ‘fruitful harvest’ in our lives.

 

So far, we have looked at how:

1. He plans

2. He prepares

3. He plants

4. He provides

5. He protects

6. He props

All of these are very positive and loving.  But next the gardener will do something that will seem cruel, harsh and painful.  He pulls out the knife  and starts cutting away parts of the plant.

7.  He prunes

The dictionary gives the meaning of ‘pruning’ as:

“…a horticultural practice involving the selective removal of parts of a plant. Reasons to prune plants include: 

~deadwood removal,

~shaping (by controlling or directing growth)

~improving or maintaining health

~increasing the yield or quality of flowers and fruits.

The practice entails targeted removal of diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise unwanted tissue from plants.”

 

In pruning, you remove parts of the plant that are sapping strength or energy unnecessarily.  This will enable the plant to develop more and stronger stems… which will produce more abundant fruit.  A grape vine will naturally put its energy into producing abundant, beautiful foliage.  Little energy is left for making many grapes. 

 

 

 So the vineyard owner will prune away a lot of unnecessary growth to force the energy into a few branches that will produce a more abundant crop.

 

 

 Plants want to go their own way and the gardener has to  prune them to lovingly train them to go his way.

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Remember the first thing the gardener does?  He plans.

      Jer 29:11  “For I know the plans I have for you," says the LORD. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

 

God, the Master Gardener, has plans for us.  And part of that plan is that we would bear fruit.

In John chapter 15, Jesus said,

 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.....every branch in Me that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” 

Actually, a better translation of the word ‘prune’ in this verse is ‘cleanse’. The Greek word used here is kathairō, which means to cleanse.  In most cases in the New Testament,  kathairo  is translated as cleanse.

Mat. 10:8  "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse (kathairo) the lepers…”

Mark 7:4 “… they do not eat unless they cleanse (kathairo) themselves”

Pruning then is the way the Lord cleanses us from things in our lives that are dragging us down and keeping us from all the best He has in mind for us.

 

If we are thinking of ourselves as plants in God’s garden, then how does God prune us and why?  Let’s look back at the definition we have of pruning:

~deadwood removal,
~shaping (by controlling or directing growth,

~improving or maintaining health,

~increasing the yield or quality of flowers and fruits.

 

What things in your life are like ‘deadwood’? 

What things are quenching or pinching off the life of the Holy Spirit resulting in little fruit? 

 

It might be sin, harmful activities, good activities, disobedience, busyness, laziness, relationships.

Some things in your life might be 'good' things, but they are keeping you from being more spiritually productive or from going in the direction He wants.  Anything that is sapping your energy, time and productivity away from what He knows is best for you has to go.  Anything that is keeping you from bearing the fruit He desires for you is “diseased, damaged, dead, non-productive, structurally unsound, or otherwise unwanted tissue.”

It might actually look very alive and flourishing and be a good thing in itself…..but it is keeping you from putting the focus on what is most important.  It will not bear the fruit He has planned for you.  We all tend to believe that ‘more’ is better.  So we fill our lives up with all kinds of things that seem very spiritual and very productive for the Lord.  Yet in all the busyness, our fruit production actually suffers.

We have to be willing to let go of the ‘good’ before He can give us the ‘best’.

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You may be going through a season in your life where you are feeling the Gardener’s knife at work on you and it is painful.  But remember….. that is the time when He is the closest to you.  His eye is on you, His hand is on you… to lovingly cut away all that is not part of His best for you and cleaning you up. 

 

It is God’s desire that we bear fruit in our lives.  But He is the one who does all the work!  We just have to submit to His loving care so we can be healthy and grow into what He desires for us to become.

 

            Heb 12:1  “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,

            let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us”

            Heb 9:14  “the blood of Christ..will cleanse your conscience from dead works to

            serve the living God.”

            1John1:9 “ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

           and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

        “God tends the gardens of our lives, tenderly trimming the

    broken places and then bringing showers of grace and blessing.”