The Tree of X
“For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.”
Today’s Text: Romans 9:1-13 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
Through faith, I have also received this inheritance: “the adoption to sonship … the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.” And through faith, I too have been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Through faith, I have become one of God’s “children of the promise” (verse 8), if God’s promise is what I hope in and what I live for.
And so my spiritual ancestry in Jesus Christ begs the questions: what is it that I hope in and what is it that I live for?
If my hope is not in Christ alone, I am not so much a child of the promise as I am a child of this earth. If I do not live for Christ, then I have not quite grasped the reality of my own immaculate conception through the Holy Spirit.
From the very start, the devil’s one agenda has been to trick us into believing that the goal and the purpose of our relationship with God has been to harvest (that is, to hope in and to live for) the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of the devil’s lies, Eve “saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6).
The late, great Dallas Willard wrote a very influential book called The Divine Conspiracy. He pointed out how Christians in the post-modern world have been deceived into believing that the whole point of our salvation is simply to go to heaven. In other words, the whole point of our salvation is ME-MYSELF-and-I.
When the whole point of Jesus going to the cross is about ME-MYSELF-and-I, what ME-MYSELF-and-I taste, feel, and think becomes the goal and purpose of life.
But when the point of my salvation is for the glory of God—Father, Son, and Spirit—that changes everything.
Food, pleasure, and wisdom represent the very best of everything that we need, but food, pleasure, and wisdom do not encompass the goal and purpose of life. The tree of life, which represents the word of God, provides the fruit we are to harvest—that is, what we are to hope in and to live for. Because when we harvest from the tree of life, God will be most glorified in us.
When we hope in and live for the glory of God, God will provide the very best of what we need, but not in a shallow, material sense. Many wealthy people—maybe most … scratch that—in fact, all who chase the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rich or poor—only find misery.
The very best of what we need is found when we harvest from the Tree of Life, who is Christ.
And, OH! here’s a thought. When we harvest from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, people become miserable because everyone has their own agenda. But when we harvest from the tree of life, people find blessing and joy because we all share in God’s one agenda—to fill the earth with the glory of God in Jesus’s name through God-fearing, God-honoring, God-worshiping, God-loving communities and families, the church.
And again, the very best of what we need—and desire, which is happiness—is found when we harvest from the Tree of Life, who is Christ.
Father, You are the Source of my life. You have adopted me into Your family by Your sovereign grace. May the fruit of the tree of life be the only thing that is desirable and pleasing for me. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
