(As you will be able to tell, I wrote this during the summer - and promptly forgot about it. But in rereading it it really spoke to me, so I decided to post it. I never finished my "exposition" of the verse, unfortunately, and can't recapture my thoughts...)
We have three zucchini plants in the backyard. Everyone is always giving away zucchini. It produces like there's no tomorrow - apparently - for I haven't seen it. In the course of the summer, it has produced a grand total of 3 zucchini. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with these plants. They've been watered and fertilized and weeded with regularity. They have sun - but not too much. The soil was prepared. Even their leaves and stalks look hale. But it produces no fruit. I feel in some measure God's exasperation here:
Now let me sing to my Well-beloved
A song of my Beloved regarding His vineyard:
My Well-beloved has a vineyard
On a very fruitful hill.
He dug it up and cleared out its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine.
He built a tower in its midst,
And also made a winepress in it;
So He expected it to bring forth good grapes,
But it brought forth wild grapes.
“ And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge, please, between Me and My vineyard.
What more could have been done to My vineyard
That I have not done in it?
Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes,
Did it bring forth wild grapes?
And now, please let Me tell you what I will do to My vineyard:
I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned;
And break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
I will lay it waste;
It shall not be pruned or dug,
But there shall come up briers and thorns.
I will also command the clouds
That they rain no rain on it.”
Thinking on my zucchini plant has brought to mind a deep longing to bear fruit, to be fruitful and please my Lord with a pleasant vineyard in my heart where He dwells. Therefore, I was meditating on 2 Peter 1 yesterday
"For this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, to knowledge, self-control, to self-control, perseverence, to perseverence, godliness, to godliness, brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Here were some thoughts on it:
"giving all diligence": "giving" here means assuming. Assuming you'll keep going and be faithful no matter what...
Faith: Scripture makes it clear that faith is a gift from God ("for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God"). It is the beginning of our journey.
Virtue: Virtue consists of three qualities~ the desire, the power and the will to do right. God has given us all three - but it is up to us to appropriate them (in His power of course! ;-))
Self-control: Of the listed, this is the first that is also mentioned as a fruit of the Spirit. As the Spirit controls our lives via increasing faith, virtue & knowledge, we begin to see what we recognize as the fruit of His work
Perseverence: I love how the King James translates this word throughout the New Testament~longsuffering. Especially since it is right after self control :-). That is how self-control feels in the beginning: suffering. sacrificing. giving things up. Until we, with vision sufficiently cleared, understand why.
What I didn't realize as I was thinking on this verse was the context (I had memorized it and was working from memory alone). Here is "this very reason":
"Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world through lust."
As we seek to be fruitful, let us never forget the Vine! O praise Him, gracious and loving is He!
Isaiah 27
1 comment:
It's alright--I wrote a post or two in the summer yet still haven't posted them...=/
Besides, who says you can't grow zucchinis in winter? ^_^
(random side note--is it just me, or do you have trouble growing anything that people say grows without any work? Like mint...and now zucchini..=)Ahaha, I bet you can grow easily things that other people say will not grow...)
Anwyays:
Well spoken!
This is a particular blessing in the trials in which I have recently gone through...and I am much of the same mind--"brought to mind a deep longing to bear fruit, to be fruitful and please my Lord with a pleasant vineyard in my heart where He dwells."
Some thoughts:
["giving all diligence"]
And there's a good reason for assuming that, too! He who began a good work is faithful to complete it. If it were simply up to us--our wills, our reason, our strength--the battle for faithfulness would be lost before it begun...but praise Him who carries us through--who has won the war already! =)
[virtue]
Two more wonderful things which fit well with the desire, power and will to do right: 1) "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." (1 Cor. 10:13) 2) "Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place,
No evil shall befall you,
Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;
For He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you in all your ways.
In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.
You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra,
The young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot." (Psalm 91: 9-13)
[perseverance]
I love the way you put it here: "That is how self-control feels in the beginning: suffering. sacrificing. giving things up. Until we, with vision sufficiently cleared, understand why."
[end notes]
Indeed! "I am the vine, you are the branches. /He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit/; for without Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5)
I think this verse fits with this post in particular: "For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, /fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God/; /strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy/; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light."(Colossians 1: 9-12)
Praise Him!
--Josiah C.
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