What Do Your Trees Look Like?

My husband has been going on and on about how he wants some fruit trees. He wants to plant a few and then learn how to can the fruit. Which means, of course, that I will have to learn all about canning the fruit. When I walk past his computer, on the screen will inevitably be a website talking about fruit trees.

I am just waiting to come home from work one day and see one standing in my front yard. Oh boy...

One thing I do know about trees in general, is that if you want them to grow right, you periodically need to prune them. Pruning a tree will enable it to grow faster, taller, produce more fruit, and generally be more attractive.

Don't prune it, and you have a mess on your hands. 

Well just like a good fruit tree, God wants us to grow taller, stronger, be more attractive to the people he wants us to meet, and to produce as much fruit in our lives as possible. In order to accomplish those goals, He needs to periodically prune us. When that pruning happens, we need to be sensitive enough to know what is happening, and why, and then embrace it. Better to get the pruning over with quickly, and go on to a more productive life in Christ.

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15:1-17‬ ‭NLT‬‬

PRAYER:
Daddy God, teach us to be fruit bears. Show us the areas that are not producing so that we may be pruned. We know the pruning is the hardest part, but we give ourselves to you. So that all that is not producing will be removed. Let everything we do and say produce fruit for your kingdom. We love you, Lord, and long to live and dwell in your presence. We also want to be your living example, so that your imagine is what the world sees. We adore and praise your holy and amazing name. Amen!!!