Illustrations can sometimes help us to better understand truth. Just as Jesus has been called the "lily of the valley" so also is love often compared to a tender plant. It must be cultivated and cherished, and the roots of bitterness all have to be plucked up around it in order for it to have room to circulate, and then it will bring in under its influence all the powers of the mind, all the heart, so that we shall love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. (Ephesians 3:17-19/Colossians 2:6,7)
What causes roots of bitterness to spring up ? The absence of the grace of God working in the life prepares the way for this to happen. An act, a word, a thought, cast into the minds of the great concourse of humanity, if it bears the heavenly endorsement, will yield a harvest of precious fruit; but if it is inspired by Satan, it will cause the root of bitterness to spring up, whereby many will be defiled. (Hebrews 12:5/Jeremiah 2:19, 4:18)
Every deed of thoughtful kindness, of obedience, or of self‑denial, will reproduce itself in others, and through them in still others. So every act of envy, malice, or dissension, is a seed that will spring up as a "root of bitterness," whereby many shall be defiled. (Matthew 7:17,18/Galatians 6:7/Proverbs 22:8) This root of bitterness can only be plucked up by GOD who then sows the soil of the heart (which is the mind) with the incorruptible seed of the woman, JESUS CHRIST, the WORD of GOD. Our heavenly FATHER watches over the heavenly SEED as it grows in the heart (mind) and the Bible says regarding that Seed that “he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground...” (Isaiah 53:2)
Christ should never be out of the mind. because as Christ the Pattern is constantly kept before the mind's eye, new habits will be formed, powerful hereditary and cultivated tendencies will be subdued and overcome ,self‑esteem will be laid in the dust, old habits of thought will be constantly resisted, love for the supremacy will be seen in its real, despicable character, and will be overcome. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
JESUS said,“Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” (MATTHEW 15:13)
Love is a plant of heavenly origin. It is not unreasonable; it is not blind. It is pure and holy. But the passion of the natural (unconverted) heart is another thing altogether, While pure love will take God into all its plans, and will be in perfect harmony with the Spirit of God, passion will be headstrong, rash, unreasonable, defiant of all restraint, and will make the object of its choice an idol. Infatuation and human passion are often mistaken for love.
Passion may feel like the love that many human beings understand but pure love originates from only one source. This heavenly plant only flourishes where Christ reigns supreme. Where love exists, there is power and truth in the life. (Psalms 138:2,26:3/2 Timothy 1:7)
CHRIST and the love of CHRIST can only reign supreme in a converted heart; in the heart of someone who has had the experience of “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1 PETER 1:23) Just as the planted seed after being submerged in the earth will eventually spring forth and bear fruit, so likewise... When self is submerged in Christ, true love springs forth spontaneously. (John 15:5,12:24)
By the grace of God, we will continue to study these things in another post.
T.K.
© 2009 Tyrone Keels
www.issues-of-life.com
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