I prayed for God to protect me from my enemies & i started to lose friends.
If you don’t like pruning, then you won’t like discipleship or promotion in the kingdom.
In order for God to elevate you, He sometimes has to remove the things around you.
& what God removes, He replaces with something better.
5 Reasons God Removes People.
1. Peace of mind
2. Protection
3. Fulfill God’s calling
4. Bear More Fruit
5. To Remain
To remain means to abide.
5 Lot also, who went with Abram, had flocks and herds and tents. 6 Now the land was not able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together. 7 And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land. (Genesis 13:5)
Sometimes the environment won't be able to support us.
This can be friends or family, one season the environment supported us, but this next season it may not be able to support us.
The environment may not be guarding your heart.
The environment may not be protecting your peace.
The environment may be distracting you from where you're called to be.
4 But the Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship was about to be broken up. (Johan 1:4)
The Lord is the one that sent a storm.
There are storms of perfection & storms of correction, Jonah's storm was a storm of correction.
Jonah carried a storm because of his disobedience to go where the Lord wanted him to go.
Do people carry storms around you?
There is unnecessary storms and warfare. People carry storms.
Are we attached to people that are attached to storms?
We must discern atmospheres that people are carrying, because sometimes it's not about who we are attached to... but what the people we are attached to that's attached to them.
1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away. (Acts 13:1-3)
There is a healthy way to know how to separate from people in ministry.
It is the Lord that gives us unity & one accord to be able to separate through prayer & fasting!
1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 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. 3 You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 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.
The Lord allows pruning to take place in our lives.
& if the Lord removes, He will always replace with something better.
Pruning is part of the process.
A cutoff is not personal, it's spiritual.
5 “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. 6 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. 7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (John 15:1-8)
Jesus is the True Vine.
Father is the Vinedresser & gardener.
We are the branches.
Branches can't bear fruit unless being attached to the vine.
Just like we can't do the Father's work without being attached to Jesus.
33 Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” (1 Corinthians 15:33)
20 He who walks with wise men will be wise,
But the companion of fools will be destroyed. (Proverbs 13:20)
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