How I understand the discipline of God

[jennifer_bloom]

The bible says God prunes Christians who bear fruit and discards those who fail to bear fruit and I would describe the pruning as any unpleasant, disappointing, depressing or unsavoury experience you encounter that sharpens your wits and makes you more agreeable and considerate as a person.

For example, you might stop bragging about doing good deeds after people criticize you for it instead of praising you. Now your both modest and a good worker too. Or you might work harder at your volunteer position when your volunteer manager yells at you for shoddy work instead of sharing the buffet food with you that you helped set up as a volunteer.

God uses both discipline, delay, deprivation, depression, and denial to fine tune your moral sensibilities so that you can be sharper and more sincere at serving him and doing his will. So the pruning of God does not have to be something extremely painful. It could be a 3 year old child who ignores you when you volunteer to babysit him or a blind person who does not say thank you because he can’t see you when you help him.

[emperor90]

Good on u he wants u to accept him and embrace him

[TheBMG]

We just did a study on this in my small group at church. I took this picture of my neighbors tree to remind me of why we need to prune ourselves. We also cannot prune our neighbors tree. He must learn to do that on his own. When we do not prune ourselves this is what can occur. We must have our Father be our gardener to truly grow into his image.