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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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,
~shaping (by controlling or directing growth,
~improving or
maintaining health,
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’.
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.”
