Spiritual Ponderings

That they may be called trees of righteousness , The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified . (Isaiah 61:3 NKJV) Did you know that God sees us all as trees? What does it mean to be a tree? This verse indicates that it is God's desire that we become known as trees of righteousness . Significantly this is immediately at the end of the passage Jesus used as His mission statement. What that means is that Jesus came to fulfill God's desire to restore us all back to our original design from creation – to be trees of righteousness... that He may be glorified . Something else very compelling caught my attention this morning. I was reading about another tree, an ancient tree in a fabulous garden. Actually the story involved two trees, one that possibly could be referred to as the original Tree of Righteousness but that was labeled the Tree of Life, and another that was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I have thought much about th...

"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart , and 'you will find rest for your souls'. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30) As my awareness of the depth of my own sinfulness increasingly becomes more evident to me, I feel the need to soak in this passage for reassurance and hope. I can only handle so much exposure to my own warped character before I start to feel so hopeless that I am tempted to think I am too much even for God to transform to become like what He is showing me He is like. But then I have to be reminded that my sin is not so great that the God of the universe is incapable of rescuing me from my selfishness. I know I am slowing Him down far too much with my resistance, but He has dealt with millions of similar people before and He has many surprises waiting to accomplish whatever it takes to chan...