By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
My wife pruned a number of rose bushes a few weeks ago. They were growing too high in the front of our house, so she pruned them back about 3 feet to a more manageable height.
Well, it was a good idea but in doing so, she stimulated their growth and now they are about a foot taller than before.
Scripture talks about us saying that once we were dead spiritually but then along came Jesus and attached us to God’s vine. The result of being attached is the opposite of being dead.
We became alive in Christ. How can we tell that we are alive in Christ since it seems such an ethereal thing? Our life in Christ is affirmed by our fruit.
What we do that benefits the Kingdom whether it be how we behave, how we give, how we think, how we suffer is evidence of our relationship with Him. If we are attached to the vine, we are producing fruit.
We can’t actually help it. It’s the natural outcome of being attached. The only way we cannot produce fruit is to be unattached and therefore, dead. The juice of God flows into us automatically when we are attached. If you see fruit, you are attached.
If you don’t see fruit, you need to look to see if you are really attached to God. Once we are attached, we begin to produce fruit. As is normal, some fruit is better than others.
Sometimes, we are those big juicy red grapes on the clump. Other times, our fruit are those small almost shriveled up grapes we see under the bigger ones. But they’re still fruit and they are still evidence of a relationship with God.
Scripture talks about a vineyard keeper coming along and trimming the vines back some. That’s called pruning and it seems counterintuitive on a good vine producing good fruit.
How does cutting off some of the better branches make for better fruit? That just doesn’t make sense. But, Like Donna pruning back the roses, they not only came back healthy, they came back more abundant producers than they had been.
John 15:2 says: “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it might bear more fruit.” If we are producing good fruit, God has a plan for us to do even more, to bear even more fruit.
More and better fruit follows the pruning. God’s pruning, while it may seem counterintuitive to us (“This makes no sense! Why, God?!”), may be His way of allowing the sweet work of transformation to take place in our own heart and life.
Basically, it is God saying to us “You have been bearing fruit, but I have even more for you, if you will let me prune you through this process.” Pruning looks like it must hurt the branches.
I know it hurts us when God is pruning because it means he is taking something from our lives. And it is generally something that looks good to us.
What we fail to understand is that what he is removing is not as good as what he will grow in its place. He may prune a relationship that has stagnated or is taking too much of our time thus limiting what we can produce or become.
Maybe he is removing a job that is hindering our spiritual growth. Maybe he is putting us through a very difficult circumstance so that we can learn to trust him more in the future.
What God asks of us during this season of pruning is that we trust him in that what comes next will be even better than what we currently have. And, that is not always easy, especially when he is removing something we truly desire to keep.
Maybe recently you’ve experienced a loss that hurts deeply. What if God had said to you “Child, trust me on this. I know it hurts and I know you will be confused during the process but when it’s over, you will be even more blessed and closer to me than you have ever been.”
Would you agree to undergo the pruning, knowing that more of Him was to be your reward? God doesn’t usually explain in advance his purpose in what he is doing in our lives, but the outcome is always going to be a better, closer relationship with him.
So, hang in there and trust the process. God is still in control. Notice, too, in that verse that you won’t just bear fruit after the pruning, you will bear “more” fruit.
John 15: 5-6 reminds us that we have a choice. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” My prayer for you this week is that you choose to remain in him. Amen.———————–
Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.