We will all have those unpleasant experiences at one time or another in our lives when we have to go “under the knife”. Thankfully in most instances when we have appointments with a surgeon, we get to be asleep at the time. That helps… a bit!
Jesus said that God our Father is the Vinedresser, He is the vine, and we believers are the vine branches. The Vinedresser comes and cuts and prunes the branches, to get rid of dead or stunted bits so that the branch draws more goodness from the vine, sends out new growth, and produces more, healthy fruit (Jn 15:1-11).
Our lives are deeply engrafted into the life of Jesus by His grace. We are to draw all of our life directly from Jesus Himself, which produces many good things in our lives for Him. Yet sometimes we draw our life from other things instead of the grace of Christ – the world’s values, pursuing our self-conceived goals, or from various schemes of self-salvation – including trying to save ourselves by speaking and acting like Christians!
Then our lives grow spiritually rank, shrivel, or die. God our Father needs to cut the stunted and dead bits out of our lives in order that we draw our life from the grace of Christ once again, send out new growth, and flourish. This makes our lives thrive, but also saves us from being cut off altogether – i.e., spiritual death! God’s “pruning” of our lives is His saving love!
Grace and secateurs, Jonathan.