The Garden Shears (Daily Devotional)

Hello and welcome to living supernaturally. We're on day three of this brand-new series, which is called show and tell, just like how in school maybe some of us did that, we took some objects and we showed it to the class, and we explained about it. Today we're just looking at some everyday objects that we see in everyday life, but these objects seem to point to a deeper truth from the Scripture. So today we are going to look at the shears or pruning shears or secateurs as they are called. So, we will look at this and I'm sure that every gardening enthusiast will have one of these. I'm no gardening expert, but I know that this is used extensively by gardeners, and these are used for pruning, for cutting away dead leaves, for cutting away overgrown leaves and branches. When pruning is done, this is done with the intention of encouraging more growth, it is to cause the plant to thrive, it is never done to hurt or stunt the growth, but it is to cause the plant to thrive. It is done with the expectation that there will be growth out of it. When we look at John chapter 15 and I'm going to read a few verses from there, John chapter 15 verses one and two, ‘I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.’ Verse four and five, ‘abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without me you can do nothing.’ Lastly, we were going to look at verse eight, ‘by this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.’ So, the Lord is saying that He is the vine, we are the branches, the Father is a vinedresser, and He comes, and He expectantly looks for fruit of fruitfulness or if you look at our lives, we can say He's looking to our lives to see productivity, to see effectiveness, to see success. It could be in ministry; it could be any area of our lives and He's looking for fruitfulness. He's desiring that we be productive. So, He has our best in mind. He desires that we thrive, and He desires that our lives are fruitful. And this is what He says, that by this, my Father is glorified. So, when your life is fruitful, when my life is productive, the Father is glorified, and His desire is that we will bear much fruit. And it's a sign, it is an indicator, the Lord says, so you will be my disciples. So, this is it, the Father takes away, removes what is dead, what is toxic, what is not causing growth, He removes what is not producing life, it could be some habit, it could be some addiction, it could be something unnecessary which acts like a ceiling. One of the things that we see is that He prunes so that we go from one level of fruitfulness to another level of fruitfulness. We see that the branch that bears fruit He prunes, which means if your life is productive, you are bearing fruit, He prunes it so that you can be even more fruitful. So, it maybe there are certain areas in our lives that we think are good, maybe certain relationships, maybe certain friendships, but God prunes that. So today let's pray and invite the work of the Holy Spirit even as He prunes our lives. Let's pray, Father, we thank you, we invite the work of your Spirit, even as your desire is that we live a fruitful life and we pray that we'll be able to identify the work of pruning in our lives and when we identify, we pray that we will not resist but rather welcome and yield to your pruning in our lives because we know that it is for our good, when you are removing things that are toxic, removing things that are unnecessary, removing things that act as a ceiling in our lives. We thank you that you desire for us to thrive, and we thank you that you have our good in your mind when you do it and so God, we welcome you, we give you all the praise and all the glory, in Jesus’s matchless name we pray, Amen.

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