But first, let's toast to some coffee and head outdoors.
As I sit and absorb my surroundings, I am amazed at all the beautiful trees around. I watch the leaves blow this way and that. The warm golden light of the morning is soft and soothing. But, the more I look at the trees, I notice something. The living branches co-exist with the dead ones.
The symbolism impacted me. The apostle Paul constantly writes how we are dead to sin then made alive in Christ in Romans 6.
"We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life," (Romans 6:2-4).
I never really considered how there are dead parts of us that we carry around while we are trying to live in Christ until a couple of weeks ago, when I felt the two clash together.
There was one side of me that was downtrodden and beaten up by the world, while the other was happy in life. I kept wondering what was up. How could I feel both awful and good at the same time?
I had a person once say that a bad habit will keep working for you until you decide it doesn't work for you any longer. Remembering this helped me make a decision: my outlook on life is no longer working for me. My perspective then shifted.
I started to see thing blooming in my life. My eyes were opened to newness all around me. Interesting opportunities lay at my feet wanting my exploration. Yet, I still felt this sense of deadness. Charles Spurgeon's devotional reading helped me flesh out this further.
"The trees of the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon which He planted," (Ps. 104: 16)
Spurgeon explains that just as a tree has to have sap to live, so must we be infused with the Holy Spirit and His word.
"Without sap, a tree cannot exist, much less flourish."*
Just like sap regenerates a tree, saturating it with with moisture and nutrients, so does the Spirit and word in our Christian walk. No sap = no tree. No Spirit and no word = Pretty hard to mature in faith in Christ and to live a Christian life.
Thus, as we open up His word, seeking God and actively listen to the Holy Spirit, then our eyes will be opened to the blooming branches that are growing as well as the dead branches that have reached the time to be pruned.
"5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.11 Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord," (Rom. 6:5-11).
Day after day, I started to see branches of my life that were inherently dead. As I started clearing out what has been so dead in my life-- negative thinking, downtrodden outlook, OCD tendancies, etc., etc., etc.-- I also was surprised to stumble upon the new branches which had suddenly come into existence unbeknownst to me. Turns out, there was a lot of dead stuff blocking my view.
So identify what no longer works in your life. Ask God to reveal the dead branches you are carrying around day after day. Pray for the strength to cut them out. And then prepare because....
New life awaits.
Content and Photography © 2013 Candice Irion. All Rights Reserved.
*Devotional reading is an excerpt from: "Morning by Morning: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon"
Spurgeon, Charles and Jim Reimann. Morning by Morning: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon. Michigan: Zondervan, 2008.
Grab a copy for yourself here!
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