Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Transplanting Roses

This last week my intern and I, set about transplanting 7 rose bushes.  I had placed them on a slope in my front yard, with partial shade from a camphor tree.  When I planted them, I really did not know much about their needs.  These roses had been struggling for 3 years and were not thriving well.  There were several problems:

1. The tree roots were pervasive and choking them out,  they were in a kind of "bondage" to the tree roots, which limited them and was gradually killing them. 
   
2. They were in "darkness", getting very little direct sunlight. 
   
3. The tree took most of the water and nourishment. 
   
4. The tree dropped all kinds of dead trash on them. 
   

Just Like These Roses

In their new soil, they have open sunlight, no tree roots to choke and compete with them, and no trash dropping on them.  Now they can grow, produce blooms as they were designed and give glory to their Creator...just like us, in Christ.  Our natural environment is like those roses, in bondage to sin, choked by it, dying, in darkness with no light.  We can't do anything about the tree, and we can't transplant ourselves. All that we can do is die under the domination of the "tree/our sin".  God in Christ, sets us free, transplanting us as it were, and the bondage of sin is broken. 

Live In The Will of God

Peter, in his epistle, ch. 4:2, tells the dispersed believers, that they should "no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God."  As I used this as an illustration in my evening sermon, my point was that we should live in our new "soil"/circumstances, not in the old bondage, because we have been set free in Christ.  And then we can "bloom" as our Creator designed us, and give Him all of the glory.  ref. - June 3, 2007, "Armed with an Attitude".