There is a Second Pruning
By Laura Densmore
I was out doing yard work the other day. I began with the mowing. I found I had trouble getting the edge of the lawn because there were many overgrown lilac bush branches low to the ground. I had already pruned these bushes back a week earlier, pruning back the limbs that were growing upward toward the power lines.
I got out my pruning shears and began pruning back the branches low to the ground so mowing would be made easier. More and more branches began to pile up. Some were just dead, some were overgrown, and the pile of pruned limbs grew higher and higher.
This thought came to my mind: “I thought I was all done with pruning! Look how much more still needed to be done!”
Then the Holy Spirit began to speak to me.
“There is a second pruning happening NOW with my remnant. How fruitful do you want to be?”
I asked Him, “What do you mean, Father?”
“Yield to the pruning in your life. I am the Vinedresser. I am the Master Gardener. Many have already gone through a severe pruning. That was the first pruning and it was necessary. There has been a “cutting away” in your life. The cutting away can be seen through circumstances that I have orchestrated.
The blade of my pruning shears as I cut away dead branches, diseased branches, overgrown and unfruitful branches, the blade is painful. It can be a cutting away of your own flesh, a circumcision of the heart through deep repentance. It can be a cutting away of a ministry, or a relationship or a loss of some kind. This is of me, and it is for my kingdom purposes. Submit to the process, bring your pain and your tears to me, and do not retaliate at the person I may use to prune you. Do not become bitter.
But there is now a second pruning underway now. It is for the purpose of GREAT FRUITFULNESS. I am now trimming back branches in your life, training branches to grow in a certain direction. This “second pruning” might manifest as cutting words—words spoken to you that sting and hurt. This is of me also.
Do not retaliate or lash back at the person I use in your life to send cutting words your way. Remember, I am the master pruner and Vinedresser and I will use whom I will use to accomplish my kingdom purposes.
You can produce NO FRUIT, NOTHING, on your own. Abide in me, remain in me, abide in my word and you will produce MUCH FRUIT. Without me you can do NOTHING.
What to do with those cutting words? Hear them. Receive them. If there is any truth in them, then repent. Repent thoroughly. Allow those cutting words to prune you so that you are shaped into the character of my son, Yeshua.
I want you to bear much fruit for the Kingdom. Fruit that will last and remain, fruit that is SWEET, not bitter, the fruit of unconditional love, love that does not keep a record of wrongs, and a TEFLON love that is UNOFFENDABLE. Fierce love that chases down the unlovely, relentless, unchanging, unshakeable, on fire love for my people, for my bride.
Submit to the second pruning. I am pruning you back even now so that you will bear much fruit for my Kingdom.
John 15:1-17
I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.
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.
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, 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.
If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
These things I command you, that you love one another.