The morning is dreary and a little cold, the forecast isn't much better, but when we stop to bask in the radiance of God's presence we find light and warmth and hope. My scripture reading this morning had me in the Gospel of Luke and I wanted to share some of it with you with a quick thought.
NLT Luke 13:6 Then Jesus used this illustration: "A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. 7 Finally, he said to his gardener, 'I've waited three years, and there hasn't been a single fig! Cut it down. It's taking up space we can use for something else.' 8 "The gardener answered, 'Give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I'll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. 9 If we get figs next year, fine. If not, you can cut it down.'"
This is a portion of scripture that comes right after Jesus giving a discourse about repenting or perishing. He has been asking the disciples about the people Herod had killed and those killed when the Tower of Siloam fell. His basic question was, "Were these people worse sinners since they died unexpectedly?" The implied answer is always "no," and then followed up with the statement that if they do not repent they are in jeopardy of perishing the same way. Sadly, the picture that forms in our minds all too often when we hear this discourse of Jesus is of a God who is waiting to get us, to throw us into hell, to punish us if we do not repent of our sins and call on Jesus. How many of us have spent days, weeks, even years worrying about God punishing us because we just hadn't gotten it right yet?
The truth is God does want us to repent and turn from our sins, not so that He "doesn't have to get us," but because He wants us to have the life that He desires for us, the one focused on Him, free of sin. He is going to work with us to get us to that place that He wants us and He is a patient God. How do we know this? By the scripture passage from above. After Jesus talks about repenting or perishing, he tells this parable about the unproductive fig tree. The owner's first response, like our first understanding of "Out to Get Us God," is that if the tree is unproductive that it needs to be destroyed. The point of the parable is the reminder of the truth that trees need to be nourished and cultivated to produce, just like people. The gardener asks for a year to fertilize and tend the tree with a confidence that it will produce and that is the message Jesus wants the disciples and us to hear.
No matter where we are, or what we are doing; whether we are unproductive or less productive than we could be; whether we are focused on God or the world; Jesus is the gardener that has come to tend the soil of our souls to turn us into the productive, fruit bearing trees that God has desired from us all along. So much of the Old Testament reflected an attitude of burn and destroy that which is unholy, but with Jesus we see a new attitude of transform the unholy into holy. Today know with confidence that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit wants to nourish your soul, to use the manure that is produced by life to fertilize your soul into a glorious, life giving, life receiving tree. We are all worth having some manure spread on us by our gardener, Jesus! He doesn't want to throw us out, He wants to transform us! Will we let Him?
Your brother in Christ,
Faron
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