Broken Twigs Can Take Root!
Sunday’s Monday
Broken Twigs Can Take Root!
I remember growing up, my mom used to break off twigs from plants she liked. She would then stand that twig in well water and nurture it for several weeks. At first the twig did nothing (that I could see) but she patiently continued to care for it until little roots started sprouting from its water-soaked stem. Once she felt the roots were strong enough, she would remove the twig from the water and plant it in life-giving soil. But she didn’t stop there, she continued to keep watch over the twig until it became a beautiful plant or mighty tree. I learned from mom how love could take a broken twig and give it a new life of purpose. You see the twig wasn’t dead it was simply restrained from becoming the plant it could be while its attached to the host roots.
If my memory serves me correctly, mom found this technique especially useful on plants that had gotten to poor too be beautiful, grown too old to produce or too wild to control. When The Holy Spirit brought me this memory, my mind went straight to Jesus and His ultimate sacrifice of love for us. The Gospel of John tells us in John 3:16 (NLT), 16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. The majority of us have heard this quoted most of our lives and some have even committed it to memory. The issue I see, is people have heard the words and gained no insight toward its true intent as many have only a vague understanding of the God who loves us so deeply. We (God’s beautiful creation) have become like those plants my mom used to save, we’ve lost our beauty, our ability to reproduce good, and our very reason for being created. God created man in His likeness, to grow in love for one another, to blossom in kindness and abound in the aroma of His good will, but over time we wilt and wither from being rooted in the world, selfishly sucking up its unsustainable poisonous promises. Our virtues turn self-centered! We become filled with prideful ambitions! Greed and hording overwhelm us, feeding our worst qualities with an all powering love for self. 1 Timothy 4:1 (NLT), 4 Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. Our internal joy is no longer!
We fall into a state denial in that we don’t want to see what we’ve become. Oh sure! We know that things aren’t where they should be, we also know that we aren’t enjoying life as we should but not knowing the answers to why, is more comfortable than facing the cause. This is our Achilles heel comfort verses truth; we continually straddling that fence and can’t break our good out from our bad. We will never grow new roots as long as we’re dependent on the old roots to support our existences. Which is explained in Romans 11:17 (NLT), But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree, some of the people of Israel have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree. Even though Abraham was rooted deeply in God, some of his descendants were not ergo God took some of those, broke them off, grafted in the gentiles and rooted them in a new way of thinking. Which goes hand in hand with Galatians 2:20 (NLT), My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So, I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
The value in all of this is understanding that there is no shame in being broken. In fact, all passionate followers of Jesus were once broken and made the decision to believe, Jesus was born of a virgin, died as a sacrifice for our sin and was raised from the dead on the 3rd day. The bible records in Ephesians 2:8 (NLT), God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Plus, 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT), This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! Through the love of Jesus our new roots are anchored in His promises and as we draw nearer to Him our roots will grow stronger and deeper. We will begin to live out Hebrews 12:15 (NLT), Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. There is hope in the will of God!
My prayer for this week is based on something I’ve heard said, you cannot do anything to make God love you any more, on the flip side, you cannot do anything to cause Him to love you any less. God is love! In His divine wisdom may our spiritual roots become fertile in Him! 2 Peter 1:3-8 (NLT), 3 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 4 And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. 5 In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
HAVE A BLESSED WEEK BY BEING A BLESSING TO OTHERS!
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