Are we finding many things either missing in our lives? Many things that we once relied on? Many things that we once confided in? Things, like certain friendships, finances, etc…? Many things that have proven to be useless in the face of our life challenges?
From the time Jesus started his ministry, God started pruning him. Those who used to be amazed at his wisdom in the temple, are now trying to stone him. Those who followed him and were empowered to chase demons, raise the dead, and proclaim the good news, left him. His earthly life was now better off a sacrifice for our sins than lived in isolation, than lived as a threatening burden to the rest of the disciples who really had nowhere else to go except hiding.
God prunes.
“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.”(Job 1:21)
A time will come when, as the church, we will be very thankful for leaving this world. Until then, let us share the joy of our salvation by preaching the good news of us being saved from God’s wrath, being saved by God, being saved through Christ, being saved by this new birth of us of the Holy Spirit, being saved by grace. Amen.
Jesus is the well of the living water, the Holy Spirit. 
Jesus may have been a good sheepherd. However, he does not seem to be a good farmer. The gospel story on pruning the branches that do not bear fruit is not the approach that people who grow vines today. I do grow vines and in order to get fruit I just select the branches that are in the right possition, because all branches bear the same fruit. We prune simply because a plant can not afford to have many branches.
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing some thoughts on this post. With Jesus, it’s actually the opposite. Jesus prunes the branches that bear fruit to allow them to bear more fruit. In real life, this means pruning us of destructive influences which can be many things: oppressing relationships, bad desires, false confidence, bad mentality and so on. There are things and people in our lives that do not contribute to our well-being, but rather do the opposite. The least burden the branch has, the better it will develop and produce more fruit. Same with the Christian, the less burden we have, the better we will able to breathe and keep our eyes on Jesus to produce more fruits of faith that will point others to Jesus as our vine.
LikeLike