The Need Of Pruning

Come, sit, and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee in the comfort of the Lord:  "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice."  Ephesians  4:31

                    " . . . every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it . . . "   John  15:2

     I have several grapevines in my garden and each year I cut out loads and loads of long spindly vines, because I know that unless I remove these, they will take all the strength that should go into fruit.  So also our precious Lord prunes His children.  The knife is sharp and it hurts, but the Father knows best.  No vine can be fully fruitful without "pruning."

     The richest, the fullest, the most fruitful lives are those that have been in the crucible of testing, that have been broken upon the wheel of tribulation.  We have no right to believe that God will do anything with our lives until He has broken us.  There are in this world few entirely unbroken lives that are useful to God. There are few men and women who can fulfill their own hopes and plans without interruptions and disappointments all along the way.  But man's disappointments are ever God's appointments; and what we believe are tragedies are only blessings in disguise, and the very opportunities through which God wishes to exhibit His love and grace.

     There are some lives in which human plans are so completely thwarted that they seem pathetic as we look at them from a merely human standpoint.  Yet if we but study these lives carefully, we see that the lives which have been afflicted are most effective.  Are you, my friend, being broken today?  Has the dearest in life been torn from you?  Have all your dreams faded?  Have all your hopes failed?  Then remember that if you could see the purpose of these thorns in your life from the standpoint of God's wisdom and of eternity, if you could interpret these trials in this aggregate of life's blessings, you would be able to dry your tears and praise the Lord for them all.  He will not withhold any good thing "from them that walk uprightly."

"Bread For Each Day"

My Small Potatoes

Sit and enjoy a cup of tea (or coffee) in the comfort of the Lord...   "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice."   Ephesians  4:31

                                       My  Small  Potatoes
   "....reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin".....  Romans  6:11
  ".... Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone...."                                                                                             John  12:24

     I've just come into the house after digging a mess of potatoes in my garden.  I dug up something besides potatoes - I dug up a sermon as well!  The first hill of potatoes was a pleasant surprise for there were seven, beautiful, large potatoes, representing a real increase.  With enthusiasm I plunged the fork under the next plant and - what a disappointment, for all I found was three little scrawny ones as big (pardon me - as small) as marbles.  I soon saw the reason.  From some cause or another the original seed potatoes had failed to die.  There it was almost the way it had been planted four months before.  It didn't die and there was no fruit.  There can be no life without death - no fruit without sacrifice.

     Yes, I dug up a sermon in the potato patch.  In fact there were at least three sermons, one for each small potato. First, it speaks of the Lord Jesus who said,  "Except a corn of wheat die....it abideth alone."  Jesus was the grain of wheat which died, only to be resurrected in a host of believers as His fruit.

     There is a lesson for the sinner too.  Until the sinner dies to his own works and to his own efforts, merit, and righteousness, he cannot know life and be saved.  And finally, what a lesson for believers.  We too have been "planted in the likeness of His death"  (Romans  6:5).  This establishes our position and salvation.  But to become fruitful we must die to self.  We must put to death the works of the flesh (the flesh of our old nature), and if we "through the Spirit do mortify (put to death) the deeds of the body we shall live"  (Romans  8:13).

     Have a good crop of potatoes!

From the book, "Bread For Each Day"