Good Wednesday Morning Blog Family, praying all is well with you and yours. Believing and trusting in God for everything, no matter how big or small. Praise God.
A lot of us have beautiful flowers and flower beds in our front and back yards. We may have beautiful trees and hedge bushes or other greenery and plants. When we are caring for our greenery and flowers as we should, we have to prune some and cut some. Now there is a big difference between pruning and cutting when caring for plants, trees and flowers. I used to have these beautiful roses that would grow very tall in between and on each end of my hedge bushes. Whenever my husband would come home, he would go out and cut away or prune all of the dead limbs and branches. He told me that the dead limbs and branches would take the nutrients from the rest of the plant or flowers and would keep them from growing to their full potential. After he would cut the dead away he would prune the rest of the plant or flowers and they would bloom so full and pretty.
Now for all of us who’s not familiar with the word pruning, it means to trim (a tree, shrub or bush) by cutting away dead or overgrown branches or stems, especially to increase fruitfulness and growth. So, this is the dictionaries definition of pruning. If the branch is dead and doing nothing cut it off but if the branch is healthy and producing, prune it so it will produce more. Now, below I have posted what Jesus has to say about cutting away and pruning branches.
John 15:1-8 reads, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
5 “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. 6 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. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
Now I ask, where do you see yourself on the vine? Are you a branch that is dead and bears no fruit or are you a live branch that bears fruit? Don’t become the branch that is dead and get cut off and thrown into the fire, because you have disconnected yourself from the vine. Be the live and flourishing branch that stays connected the vine and gets pruned and produces and grows more and more. This is such a good teaching on staying connected to Jesus. Without Him we can do nothing of ourselves, we need Him in everything that we do. Just like the branches that are not connected to the vine, they will eventually wither and die. Without being connected to Jesus, we pretty much will experience the same thing, we will wither and die and be thrown into the fire.
We all need Jesus and we need Him all of the time, everyday 24/7. We can’t do this without Him and God knew that. He knew we would need a Savior to connect with and follow and that is Jesus, our Lord and Savior, our vine. Remember, apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. God Bless 🙂
Prayer
Father God, we come to You in the Mighty Name of Jesus, Your Son and our Lord and Savior. Our vine in whom we have to stay connected to in order to live and be fruitful and continue to grow. Thank You so much for giving us Your one and only Son that we may live. Amen