God Wants You to Grow
Psalm 92:12-15, "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing; 15To show that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." It is important that as we read the previous scripture we should dwell on the fact that it says those that be planted in the house of the Lordshall flourish. Anything and everything that God plants will grow and will mature even in our old age because He is our Rock and our fortress. The extent to which you and I grows depend upon the plan that God has for our lives. But make no mistakes about it, we will grow as we obey His will for us. We are the righteousness of God and we will grow spiritually as we grow naturally when a seed is planted into the ground. That is God’s plan for us but because we are free moral agents, meaning we can make choices for ourselves, we can go against what God has in store for us.
As I was reading a devotional by Stephen Hill, an article caught my eye relative to Bonsai Babies. The bonsai tree is the Japanese horticulture of dwarf trees whereby miniature trees are a century old and are only two or three feet high. The gardener, instead of trying to get them to grow to their best, takes infinite pains to keep them little. His purpose is to grow dwarfs, not giant trees. From the time of their planting they are repressed, starved, crippled, stunted. When buds appear, they are nipped off. So the tree remains only a dwarf all of its life. The parallel is that some Christian people seem to do the same thing with their lives. They do not allow themselves to grow. They rob themselves of spiritual nourishment, restrain the noble impulses of their nature, shut out of their hearts the power of the Holy Spirit, and are only dwarf Christians when they might be strong in Christ Jesus with the abundant life which the Master wants all of His followers to have. He ends by stating that whatever is out there that stunts your growth, get rid of it!! God is after towering oak trees, not little bonsai babies.
Please keep in mind that God does not see or measure growth as a man would measure. We tend to measure growth or effectiveness by quantity whereas God measures by quality. God can give both quantity and quality, but quality is the result of obedience to the Master’s will for your life. If fact His words to believers in Jesus Christ is found in 2 Peter 3:18, "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." The bonsai trees are a marvel and somewhat cute. God is not after making us cute but of making us into His likeness and into His image. He has given us His Holy Spirit that we may be made just like Him. Jesus prayed this prayer in John 10:27-30, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. 30I and my Father are one." As children of God, we are able to call Him our daddy also because we were born of the Spirit of God when we were born again as identified in 1 Peter 1:23, "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." Glorify God.
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