In family-owned vineyards in the Texas Hill Country, we’ve seen vinedressers at work. Slowly and methodically, they fuss over each branch, cutting some things off and cutting others back.
Cutting dead things off makes sense to us. Lifeless material can harbor disease or insects, so it has to be cut off. But if we know nothing about viticulture, we’re baffled why anyone would cut back living material. Even the plant seems to feel the loss, sometimes “weeping” sap until the wound scars over.
But the vinedresser knows that it’s an essential step to optimize the quality and abundance of grapes. I read an article from a viviculturist who said to think of it like plumbing. The twigs and branches that come off the main trunk are like a series of water pipes. By reducing the number of pipes that the water flows into, it increases water in the remaining pipes. The result is greater fruit.
In John 15, Jesus said God intends us to be fruitful, and that requires pruning: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
Now, affliction in and of itself is not the pruning. In his sermon on this text, Charles Spurgeon said that affliction is only the handle of the pruning knife, but God’s word itself is the blade.
Here’s what that means.
We all face hardship, believer and nonbeliever alike. In those moments, you have a choice: You can go through a trying experience and turn away from God, resentful and angry. Or you can cling to his word as you go through that hard time, and you’ll become more fruitful.
Believers allow God’s word to prune them in the midst of our afflictions.
To those who think we’re alone in the universe, life’s disappointments seem pointless and unbearable. But we’re not on our own. God carefully works even in hard times to bring out the very best in you. Isn’t it a comfort to know that God can bring some meaning to it? Isn’t it reassuring to know that a good and sovereign vinedresser can make you more fruitful as a result of it?
That’s what we’ll study as we continue our series through the “I Am” statements of Jesus this Sunday. See you at 10am on campus or online at Hillcrest Church!
--Tom
My new novel comes out in eight weeks! It’s based on the true story of a minister who faced down a violent bootlegging gang in the Piney Woods of East Texas to become known as the pistol-packing preacher.
A big part of launching a book involves “Advance Reviewers.” These are people who agree to read a free copy ahead of publication and leave an honest review the week the book comes out.
Find out how you can be an Advance Reviewer by clicking here.
Each week in this space, I provide links to articles and podcast episodes that I recommend you check out for yourself.
“Sixty years ago, Alfred A. Levy patented his “telephone hold program system.” Little did he know a teenager’s unearthed New Age practice tape would become its enduring anthem.” A Brief History of Hold Music, From Early Patents to the Soundtrack of Customer-Service Purgatory
Review of the book Yesteryear: “Burke rightly recognizes that the tradwife social media influencer movement isn’t as transparent as it claims to be. She also rightly identifies that the alternative on the other end of the spectrum isn’t any better: give up a family to work until you die. But Burke lies to us, too, and it’s brazen: Be a married Christian mother who aspires to build her home and follow the Lord, and you’re doomed to a psychotic breakdown eventually.... Burke’s characters are caricatures, her social commentary socially unaware.... If Burke wanted to meaningfully interact with whom she meant to satirize, all she had to do was put down her phone and go to church. That’s where real Christian wives and mothers live and love.... Instead of pews lined with people who spend their lives curating their online ones to perfection, Burke would see sinners in need of a Savior. And in their repentance and forgiveness, she’d be pointed to him too.”
Noah Rothman is a senior writer at National Review and author of the new book Blood & Progress, which makes the case that left-wing political violence has a long and largely forgotten history in America. In this podcast, he joins Coleman Hughes to argue that the commonly held belief that political violence is largely a right-wing phenomenon is not just inaccurate but actively dangerous.
After remaining dormant for 46 years, India’s anti-conversion law has resurfaced, sparking fresh protests. In this documentary, Newsreel Asia producer Harshita Rathore travels to Arunachal Pradesh to understand the decades-long debate from both sides.
For First Things, Timon Cline writes, “Contrary to online chatter, we are not in a ‘Catholic moment.’ But we may already be in an evangelical century.”
Some people think license plate cameras are a violation of privacy. This article from the Waco Bridge via the Texas Tribune failed to make the case. The instances of mistaken identity the article cites are consequential, to be sure, but they have no relation to the core claim of anti-surveillance activists that the cameras violate a constitutional right to privacy.
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