The Lord’s Pruning Shears       

Read: John 15:1-5 ESV – I Am the True Vine – “I am the true – Bible Gateway

“Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” John 15:2 ESV

I trimmed, or should say cut down, my wife’s rose bushes a few months ago. ‘Cut down’ is more appropriate, because there wasn’t much left of them when I got through. Having done the same thing a few years ago the rose bushes came back better than ever. But this year, I thought I had gone too far, they’ll never come back, but they did. We’ll see next spring having survive the winter how many roses reappear.

Pruning shears are used to trim off dead or living parts of a plant so they stay healthy and produce at a greater pace. They are also used to cut out unnecessary parts including foreign objects such as weeds that have infiltrated around the plant. Such was my case. Being so determined to eradicate those weeds once and for all, I nearly destroyed my wife’s rose bushes. But such was not the case. The weeds had to go. The rose bushes suffered more than the usual yearly trim as I worked towards the root of the problem.

The Lord’s pruning shears work the same way in the lives of Christians. Sometimes we need more than yearly trim. We need a weeding out of the foreign objects in our lives. These are the things we accept into our lives, allowing them to grow by watering and feeding them with the elements of the world around us. Soon they begin to choke out the vitality of our Christian life as the values of sin and the world take over. The Lord will take His pruning shears and cut us down until we think there’s nothing left of us, but if we accept it from His gracious and merciful hand repenting, He will bring us back better than ever.