WATCHWORD:
2-3 Now that you realize how kind the Lord has been to you, put away all evil, deception, envy, and fraud. Long to grow up into the fullness of your salvation; cry for this as a baby cries for his milk. 4 Come to Christ, who is the living Foundation of Rock upon which God builds; though men have spurned him, he is very precious to God who has chosen him above all others. 5 And now you have become living building-stones for God’s use in building his house. What’s more, you are his holy priests; so come to him—you who are acceptable to him because of Jesus Christ—and offer to God those things that please him. 1 Peter 2:2-5
12-13 You have been Christians a long time now, and you ought to be teaching others, but instead you have dropped back to the place where you need someone to teach you all over again the very first principles in God’s Word. You are like babies who can drink only milk, not old enough for solid food. And when a person is still living on milk it shows he isn’t very far along in the Christian life, and doesn’t know much about the difference between right and wrong. He is still a baby Christian! 14 You will never be able to eat solid spiritual food and understand the deeper things of God’s Word until you become better Christians and learn right from wrong by practicing doing right. Hebrews 5:12-14
Meditation:
Parable of the Trees
I want to share a simple story. We could call this the parable of the trees. Two farmers went out to plant orchards in adjacent fields, an old farmer and a young farmer. They both set out to plant five fruit bearing trees. The old farmer dug five holes for his trees, placed a sapling in each hole, covered the roots with good soil and tamped it down, and was done.
The young farmer also had five trees. He, too, dug five holes, and into each hole he placed fertilizer with each sapling, covered the roots with good soil and tamped it down. He then built a little reservoir around each tree, and filled that with water. It took him a lot of work, but he got the job done.
Later, both farmers walked out to inspect their orchards. The old farmer’s trees didn’t seem to be thriving. They were showing green but they just didn’t seem healthy. The young farmer’s trees, in the other field, were rich, healthy green, each tree filled-out with leaves. Clearly, here were trees that were thriving. Too months later, the two farmers went out to examine their orchards. The old Farmer’s trees were blossoming, with green fruit hanging off all of the branches. Clearly the trees were healthy and thriving. The young farmer’s trees were showing signs of stress. While there was some fruit hanging, it was small and disappointing.
Like any other parable there is a moral to this. The old farmer’s trees had to send their roots deep to find water and nourishment, and in the process, they strengthened the whole tree, creating a healthy source of fruit. The young farmer had taken the need to strengthen the root system away from the trees by providing everything they needed without having to work for it. Thus, denying those trees the strength needed to truly thrive.
The moral of this story is not adversity, but you might think of tough love. What makes us thrive in our spiritual growth? How do we become more Christ-like in our lives? By staying close to the master. It is critical for our growth in our faith, that we practice with discernment, our relationship with God.
We all start out as baby Christians and we will remain baby Christian without challenge. We need teachings that makes us stretch, that challenges us to think and grow closer to our Lord and Savior. We need to sense that we are growing in our knowledge of Christ and how we live our lives. We need to recognize that we have within us the strength of Christ, through the Holy Spirit and we can face anything that comes our way in life , because of that. Finally, we cannot walk our Christian way without discernment, without awareness of the guidance and direction that God is giving us each moment of each day through the Holy Spirit.
With that kind of challenge, we are like the orchard whose roots went deep to find the nourishment, to find where the living water is, where the Source of our lives resides in Christ. Without that nourishment, our Christian walk will not thrive, we will not risk in our Christian lives, we would not respond well to the nudging of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bulletin Board:
I began these Watchwords on March 20, 2020, as the pandemic was wrapping its tentacles around us, altering our lives, for time. This Watchword is #600! (Not counting the occasional Watchwords that were repeated from a previous year.) I find that amazing. I pray with each edition that, through God’s graces, these devotionals will give encouragement and nourishment for our souls. And so we continue.
Praying Matthew 11:28-30:
Heavenly Father, you bid us to come to You for we are weary and burdened, and You will give us rest. You tell us to take Your yoke upon us and learn from You, that You are gentle and humble in heart, and we will find rest for our souls. It is with gratitude, Lord, that we follow your Word, and feel your Presence and we realize we are no longer burdened and weary. We find Your yoke easy and with each breath we are at Peace. With gratitude, Lord, we thank you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
