Three Years

Three years ago, I made the decision to make Jesus the Lord of my life. I can remember standing in the coffee aisle at Dierburgs with Ash like it was yesterday. That moment was the beginning of a journey. A journey that doesn’t end, praise the Lord, until I get to see Him face to face. The past three years have been so far from my wildest imagination. The pain. The victories. The hurts. The hope. And yet, the promises of His Word, the moments spent in His presence…it’s enough to make it until He comes back. He has always been faithful.

Someday I hope to get to share in depth of where I have walked with Jesus and what the last three years have looked like for the two of us. One day, I will share about some moments in the depths of the blackest pit and the journey of Him pulling me into the light. I pray that when that day comes, oh how gloriously His name will be lifted on High through sharing His encompassing hand of faithfulness in my life.

But for now, I do want to share some of the hope which has carried me through some of the darkest weeks of my life, about a year ago. I have clung to these Truths over and over and over again in the past year of loving Jesus. And today, well, on this day, this one promise that has carried me through seems to have a particularly significant and overwhelming PROMISE for my life.
Let’s first look at John 15:1-8:
The Vine and the Branches
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Last year, around this time, Ash had me listen to this sermon on this passage. Over the past year, I have come to cling to the Truths I learned from it. I learned that there are two groups of branches in this passage…branches that bear fruit (Christians) and branches that don’t bear fruit (?). The branches that don’t bear fruit can be referred to as Judas branches because Judas willingly walked away from Jesus.

See, at this point in my life, there was little to no fruit in my life. There was a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of trouble and affliction. There were days when I didn’t function, quite honestly, days when making it out of bed just wasn’t going to happen. I was broken and hurting. Mostly, I was confused. At this point, I had been in love with Jesus for several years. I had been healed of many issues from my past. I was a graduate of Mercy Ministries! And yet, there was so little fruit in my life. I was continually told that as a Christian, I should see fruit. But I didn’t. This caused a season of doubt…was I really a believer? Could I lose my salvation? Why wasn’t there fruit in my life? Was it ever going to change? Would my life ever reflect the love for Jesus I knew I had in my heart? There was so little peace. Mostly, a whole lot of pain. Sometimes, it just blinded me quite honestly. I feel like I walked though most of this season literally squinting the whole time because the pain was just unbearable most days. But the Truth of this sermon gave me hope for what was coming…

Much of this parable is taken into the context of real life, modern day farming and plant care. In real life, the role of the farmer greatly parallels the role of the heavenly Father in our lives.
The farmer must do 2 things:
1.) cut off the branches that bear no fruit, otherwise they will suck the energy and nutrients away from the good ones
2.) prune the fruit-bearing branches constantly so they could bear more fruit

The Father must do 2 things:
1.) take away the branch with no fruit
• He just cuts it off…doesn’t try to fix it…He burns it!
• Judas type is cut off and cast aside…1st duty of the Father.
2.) purge the good branches with fruit
• to cleanse, prune
• must be tended to carefully…drastic pruning necessary
• must get rid of the shouts

How does the Farmer Prune?
1. Pinching- removes only the end
2. Topping- removes the first 1-2 feet of large branches so they don’t get too large
3. Thinning- removes clusters so nothing is lost

How does the Father Prune?
He prunes with the knife…the Word of God.
1. affliction- the handle where God gets the grip
2. trouble- the point of penetrating the wood
3. suffering- the chopping away, the grueling pain

At this point, we tend to ask, God, do you really know what you are doing? It just HURTS SO MUCH!
But we must remember, as the shouts grow, the Gardner must prune and purge what drains away life.
We must also know that He is helping us to bear more fruit in the long-run! He is IN THIS…He is good.

The Pruning Process must become a joy because we must see past the clipping…this process will come to an end eventually. WHEN?? I can remember crying out to God asking Him often, Lord when will it be enough? When will you leave me alone? When will the pain even stop?
This is the most beautiful Truth I have learned in much of my walk with Christ. It is commonly a well-known fact to farmers that when one is growing a tree or plant, you CANNOT ALLOW the tree to bear fruit for THREE YEARS. Even when it looks like it wants to bear fruit, the farmer must prune it, cutting it back enough so that after THREE YEARS, it will be able to produce crazy fruit for years to come.

By removing ALL things that will hinder our fruit-bear capacity, we will bear abundantly more fruit later. Specifically, THREE YEARS later. I don’t claim to know the biblical breakdown of this idea, but I just know that in my own life, this concept of three years has been a promise I have clung to time and time again. Now, has there been fruit in my life? YES! Of course there has been much fruit in my life as a believer and I definitely am not implying that we, as believers, cannot bear fruit until three years after coming to know Christ. I am just sharing a promise that gave me hope when I didn’t see the fruit.
Just in reflecting on the fruit I have seen over the past few years, I am excited that if that was only the fruit I saw in the MIDST of the pain, the midst of the pruning, in the midst of the purging away, then HOW MUCH MORE fruit is coming?!? Yesterday, February 26th, 2011 marked THREE YEARS since I have come to know Christ.

A few nights ago, I was just reading and came across this parable in Luke 13:

6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. 7 So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

8 “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

How crazy is this!!! It was just like the Lord was so graciously confirming to me His promise that I had clung to all this time. Up to this point, I was literally clinging to a fact of farming. But now, I can cling to this promise of entering into a new season of INSANE fruit-bearing from the Word of God! What a promise. What faithful Father.

Prune and Purge it all Lord. I will give up everything for you. Even in the depths of my pain, in the deepest of suffering, in the ceaseless trials. I want YOU. At the end of the day, I want them to recognize me by my fruit as Jesus talks about in Matthew 7:16.

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” -John 15:8