The Pruning Process
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
John 15:2
From our last time spent together on “Abide in the True Vine”, we learned that Christ was speaking with His disciples and preparing them for His grand departure. It was essential that He took the time to carefully impart into their hearts these true words because it was these last words which brought their assignment all together. In verse one (1) He instructed them; who was the True Vine and who was the Gardener, to make it fundamentally clear who they (Father and son) are in relation to the fake vines in the world.
In verse two (2) Christ describes the responsibility of the Gardener very distinctively and I can imagine He possibly illustrated this to them in the vineyard so that they could get a pictorial view of what the Father would be doing. I can picture the Father walking through His vineyard and carefully assessing the growth of every branch. Every dryness He observes he perhaps uses His shears to cut them off before it causes damage to the entire tree. He gathers all the unwanted and useless dead branches and dumps them to be burned. Let us remember that He is the Good Shepherd and the Good Shepherd always takes good care of His sheep.
“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit”
Lovingly the Gardener who oversees our works, carefully removes all the dead fruits from our lives. During this season He calls us into training and refinement. We are under His care in this season and as we allow Him access, He begins to very strategically remove the fruits in our life that are causing us to fail and operate in the flesh. That’s why the verse says that He cuts off every branch in us that bears no fruit. These branches must be removed otherwise He will not be able to consume us as effectively as He and even we desire. In order for Him to do so however we must grant Him access and permission to come in and do what He desires to do. He isn’t like a man who would boldly enter without permission. He wants our full approval before He can begin the work. Once He is welcomed and we willingly decide to surrender to His will the refinement begins. This process carries on throughout our walk with Him.
He observes that there are areas in our life that do not produce a sweet savour to Him and He decides to gracefully remove that branch. What He desires is that our fruits produced will be sweet and eternally beneficial to the Kingdom of God. His Kingdom is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and this is what we must always aspire to attain. These areas that He desires to remove are operated by the works of flesh and they must be removed because the flesh is at constant war against the Spirit. The good works the Lord wants to produce must be produced in a life that is fully consecrated to Him; one that lives in daily surrender to His will.
“while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful”
After our Gardener cuts off the poisonous fruits which would eventually lead us astray from Him, He tenderly trims our branches. Let us remember that He fits many caps as our Father. His skills as a porter are activated in the trimming process. He takes the time to mold and shape the vessel (us) until we have reached the shape and likeness He desires. Just like gold being refined in the fire, He doesn’t stop until all the impurities are exempted from our life. He takes us from one level to another after every pruning stage but He continues to perfect His work in us until we meet Him face to face.
The more He prunes us into His image, the sweeter and greater quantity of fruits we will produce for His Kingdom. One of the characteristics of a fruit is that a seed is produced. That seed is hidden inside until it’s ready to burst open. The more we allow Abba to refine us, the more seeds we produce down on the inside of us and at the appointed time we give birth to His seed(s) which will produce even more fruit. The whole point of being pruned by Him is so that we can produce an abundance of good fruit for the Kingdom of God. He wants that as we work for His Kingdom, we plant seeds in good soil so that it will grow and blossom to produce even greater fruit.
Will you allow Abba the permission to prune you? He desires to transform your life from the inside out so that you can produce Sweet and Eternal Fruits for His Kingdom. The amazing thing about this journey is that He blesses you with an abundant life as you surrender your life to Him.
