Pruning Is Hard To Do

I like to plant things in my flowerbeds that require very little maintenance. My plan was to plant a couple of varieties of African daisies to finish out the look in my front beds. Their care consist of watering and pinching off the dead blooms. Not bad. However, as I praised my finished work, God raised my eyes to view the over grown nandina bushes just behind. They looked unruly and overgrown. Nandina bushes are basically maintenance free too except they require major pruning every couple of years. It was like God was reminding me this was the year. 

Reluctantly, I found the pruning shears and started to work. Of course, I wanted to give up after the second bush because my back was hurting from bending over. With each cut, I kept thinking I’ll finish this tomorrow. Yet, God was not ready for me to quit and told me to sit down, relax, and continue on. Just so you know, it was amusing scooting around on my hind parts from bush to bush and the times I had to get up...well that was pretty amusing too.

I should have known when I heard ‘sit down, relax, and continue on’ that there was more on God’s mind then just my immediate trimming need. The more I pruned the more He talked to me about the process of pruning. Now, I was pruning in the natural but He was explaining pruning in the spiritual. I finally had to get my journal and start writing. Below are the highlights of what I heard.

• If we are God’s child (accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord), then we will be pruned from time to time. Those whom He loves He corrects.

• Even though God prunes out of love and always has our best interest at heart, there will always be those who will question and blame God, refusing to change and thus never receiving the blessing of revelation and restoration that pruning provides.
  
  
• Trust God and His progress. Come humble before Him. He will turn everything to our good when we allow Him to finish His work. He is preparing us for the desires of our hearts which usually originate from Him.
  
  
• God desires more fruitfulness. Each trimmed limb often produces a double or more portion.
  
  
• Sometimes just a small snip gets our attention and realigns us but other times it’s a major undertaking. Major pruning is a step by step process. Each lesson has to be completed before advancement is allowed because each lesson is valuable. Stubbornness, willfulness, and the like will prolong the prune.
  
  
• Some of the reasons God prunes us are among the following: pride, ungodly mind-sets, undesirable attitudes and actions, unproductive dead parts, or lack of balance. The focus is to put us back on the right track again.

• Pruning does not mean we have lost your position in Him or His love. On the contrary, it is out of His love that He takes the time to refine. Then afterwards, who knows...it could bring an unexpected promotion.
  
  
• Our pruning is tailored to what is necessary at that time. And...We are not all pruned at the same time. God continually searches our hearts individually and not our deceptive outward appearance for inconsistencies.
  
  
• Hopefully because of our experiences, when we see the pruning of another, we will be compassionate, encouraging and not a gossip.
  
  
• We do not want to be 'in need of pruning' because of pride and possible embarrassment but God is not concerns about our reputation or our feelings when it comes to needed course corrections. He will comfort us doing the process but our feelings are not a deterrent. If it gets messy, He can restore anything lost when needed.
  
  
• God remains near us at all times to instruct and encourage. God always helps us clean up the repentant mess around us by taking away any sin, shame, guilt or regret. God is after the hope of glory He desires in us through expanding our faith and character.
  
  
• When God prunes us, He doesn’t look down on us in condemnation at all. He desires to reveal wisdom and solutions on a level we can understand. However, it is our responsibility to actively seek Him for the needed changes when things go south.
  
  
• Joy can be achieved throughout this process when we become grateful for/in the journey.
  
  
• When a plant is trimmed on the surface, its initial response is to go underground to develop stronger roots. In spiritual pruning, a stronger root is a teachable heart, a listening ear, time in His presence, prayer, bible study, fellowship, counsel and support from godly people to name a few.
  
  
• God’s grace is sufficient to help us find and eliminate any and all sinful roots especially the root of bitterness. Unless we intensionally root out the causes of these ungodly attitudes and actions, they will keep cropping up.
  
  
• God’s purpose in pruning is not to harm us but to guide us and give us a future and a hope by reestablishing His promises and commands then reaffirming His faithfulness to fulfill those promises and realign us in His cammands. In the end, we feel lighter and freer and we treasure the wisdom revealed because we have become more Christlikeness.

Afterwards, when I came into the bathroom to get cleaned up, I walked in front of the mirror and my T-shirt caught my eye. Rooted In Christ! That put a smile on my face. What a great ending to a great time with the Lord.

I don’t know where you are in your life today. You may be living the life of God’s joy, peace and abundance. However, if you find yourself in a season of God’s purposeful pruning, I hope this post will encourage you in your difficult season. It may not seem like it now but this too shall pass in God’s way and timing. Learn all you can and allow Him to love you through it.

John 15:2-6

Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so 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, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

What Will You Do With This Jesus?

This is a beautiful Christmas poem the Lord gave me this year. I hope it blesses you as it did me while I wrote it down. Afterward, I felt a real sense of urgency that our time is short.

What Will You Do With This Jesus?

Mary Jane Downs

December 15, 2018

Sitting here in my den filled with bright light

Thinking about that one blessed long ago night.

When the entire world was about to be forever changed,

But few even noticed…distracted by more “important” things.

The story of Jesus had started months before then

When an angel had visited Mary in her little den.

The prophets had for told that the Savior would come.

Now Mary was being told the Savior would be her son.

Mary and Joseph, her betrothed, went through horrible shame

Because people wouldn’t believe what God had proclaimed.

The gift that He had promised for so many centuries

Was now coming in a way that seemed to them too mysterious.

Still…on that blessed night, all went according to God’s holy design.

Jesus was born without any thought or plan from mankind.

He lay in that out-of-the-way straw-filled manager for all to see.

But only a few shepherds and three wise men felt the need.

Incredulously you may say, well…if the birth happened today,

We, the enlightened, would be much more aware than they!

How could they let such a glorious event pass them by?

“I” would have surely done more when Jesus arrived!

It’s sad to say that today not much has changed.

Man desiring more temporal earthly treasures to gain.

Jesus has lived among us through the Holy Spirit for over 2000 years

And most of the world still ignores Him or jeers.

So now I look to you and say with love

“What will you do with this Jesus, God’s son?

Is He more significant then your “important” earthly plans?

Will you bow at the manger and hold His divine hand?

Everyone has to make the choice for themselves,

Accept God’s gift or place Him up on your dusty shelf.

You have only this lifetime for that conscience decision.

Choose wisely, my friend, it will be eternally written.

Micah 6:8 

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love kindness and mercy, and to humble yourselves and walk humbly with your God?

Deuteronomy 10:12

And now, Israel, what does the Lord you Go require of you but reverently to fear the Lord your God, this is to walk in all His ways and to love Him. And to serve the Lord your God with all your mind and heart and with your entire being. 

Poems the Lord gives me usually form a picture when I complete and center them. 

Can you see the picture in this one?

I had just bought one in preparation for the snowstorm we just had here in Western NC.

It's a Coleman lantern on a table (or life's foundation).

My Sins, Whiter Than Snow Part 2

When Jesus came, everything changed. He put an end to the law and the need for animal sacrifices, not by destroying the law but fulfilling it once and for all. (Matthew 5:17) Judgment and the lingering feelings of condemnation, guilt and shame for sins vanished, if we chose to receive what Jesus has done on the cross.

The law required that the sacrificial lamb be perfect. Then, after the sins of a person were transferred, the animal would be put to death and the blood spread on the altar.

Jesus, being the Son of God, remained a sinless man. Before He was sacrificed on the cross, all of mankind’s sin past, present, and future were transferred to Jesus. Then He died. Unlike the animals of the Old Testament, though, Jesus had the power to rise again from the grave to claim victory over all of mankind’s sins and the death penalty as well once and for all. 

This means, we are free from God’s judgment and we do not have to carry around thoughts of condemnation, guilt, and shame anymore. We carry God’s grace because we have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. No sin can ever steal our righteousness away. Now when I sin, I say I’m sorry, I remind myself of God’s promise of grace, I thank Him, and then I ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom to avoid that sinful situation in the future.

God showed me a vision pertaining to this recently. I could see myself standing there with lots of dark spots (sins) all over on me. I tired to get them off but I couldn’t. When I hear the gospel, I saw myself accepting Jesus into my life and every last one of those dark spots immediately fell to the floor. Instantaneously, Jesus gave me a glowing white robe and I saw myself putting it on. Jesus told me it was my robe (gift) of righteousness and it would never come off even when I sinned again. From now on, He would take the responsibility for my sins and reminded me that His grace is sufficient.

Then the scene changed. I sensed I wasn’t ‘feeling so righteous’ anymore because I was still sinning. Guilt and shame permeated my thoughts. I felt like the dark spots should reappear to represent my present sin. I could see myself picking up the pile of dark spots and trying to make them stick by rubbing them back on my robe of righteousness but they slid off and fell to the ground.

  

As I pondered this, I realized that most of my life I did not understand the full significance of all that Jesus had accomplished on the cross for me. I knew in my heart my sins were forgiven but my mind was plagued with thoughts of guilt, shame and never measuring up from the enemy. Unfortunately, my mind (soul-mind, will, and emotions) ruled over what my heart wanted to believe. Fear overwhelmed me at times and I would go through bouts of depression. I felt unrighteous and my relationship with God was affected. I felt I had to “do” more to cleanse the sins I was still committing. Carrying around the guilt and shame was part of my penitence. I was never fully cleansed. Thus, I was never free from condemnation. In my mind, it always kept me at a distance from God.

Then I discovered:

The law is about ‘what I can continually do’ to remain righteous

but accepting Christ is about

‘being in a state of righteousness continually’ forever.

When I am in Christ,

I do not have to do anything more to stay righteous.

He is my righteousness!

What I had failed to comprehend years ago was that the sins I committed from then on did not affect my righteousness or God’s opinion of me. I had always measured up not because of me (my self-righteous activity) but because of Christ (the Cross). I was ‘in Christ’ and he had continually taken care of whatever sins I had. That truth does not make me want to sin more but love more…love the Trinity more. Share Christ with more of those around me. The fear and depression? It gradually melted away the more I meditated on: My sins were really gone forever and God loves me no matter what. Carrying around the guilt and shame as penitence was neither necessary nor desire by God. Now, we are freed to be grace-conscience instead of sin-conscience. When we accept that sacrifice of Jesus into our lives, we become whiter than snow for eternity.

The knowledge that I am truly free from the law of sin and death has turned my sorrow into great joy!

Blessings to each of you in this season of our Savior! 

(Romans 8:1-2, Galatians 5:1, John 8:32, Philippians 3:9, 1Cor. 1: 30) 

Missing You

Why was the Lord sending me to a writer’s conference? I thought after Patti gave me a word of direction. Oh…I know. God needs to give me a swift ‘kick in the pants’. I haven’t written much in the last four months even though my computer functions great now. (Thanks to David, my son.)

Day after day, I kept putting God off with what I thought were valid reasons. The couple of weeks turned into over four months. My writing Buddy kept encouraging me to schedule time to write. Until one day, I sensed God stood His ground and send me that word. It was like He was standing there before me tapping His foot, crossing His arms and raising a brow. He knew the urgency of de-cluttering my house had overshadowed the importance of what He wanted to do through my blog. Turns out those valid reasons… they were only hollow excuses.

So with a humbled heart and a new notebook in hand, I journeyed up the mountain nearby to allow God to inspire me over the next four days. Within three big comfortable sofas and a few chairs, there were two gifted speakers and 30 of us inquisitive aspiring writers. I had heard most of the basic information before. However, the intimate setting, the open discussion, and the friendships I was forming delighted me.

As I crawled into bed after the third long day, I asked the Lord again if there was something more specific that He wanted to say. I had been inspired by the group’s creativity and vision but I felt like there was something more I was suppose to receive…maybe something personal.

Early the next morning, as I began waking up before the alarm, I heard the Lord say in my spirit:

“But I miss you.”

I sat up as my heart melted to the core. Tears formed. I knew the Lord had just expressed some of his His deeper feelings. I sensed He felt like a spurned sweetheart/husband. I had pushed Him away long enough and He desired to rekindle the intimacy again. He enjoyed our weekly writing time together because we connected on a much deeper level. I asked for His advice and gave Him praise when the inspiration came. We had even laughed and had fun at times. He enjoyed seeing me thrive in His presence.

My response:

Awwwww…I miss you too.

Needless to say, my writing took on a fresh perspective. I began by renewing my purpose for writing…to share with others what the Lord shares through the everyday events in my life. Later, as I mulled over His words, I was so touched by the Lord’s love and steadfastness to save our writing relationship.

It wasn’t a swift kick in the pants at all. It was the ‘Lover of my soul’ wooing me back to his arms.

But from thence ye shall seek Jehovah thy God, and thou shalt find him, when thou searches after him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.  

Duet. 4:29 (ASV)