Christianity Oasis Forum

[cimi]

JUNE 30 FRIDAY


TIME TO FLOURISH

TODAY’S READING
LUKE 13:1-9
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“Sir,” the man
replied, “leave
it alone for one
more year, and I’ll
dig around it and
fertilize it.” Luke 13:8
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Last spring I decided to cut down the rose bush by our back door. In the three years we’d lived in our home, it hadn’t produced many flowers, and its ugly, fruitless branches were now creeping in all directions.

But life got busy, and my gardening plan got delayed. It was just as well__only a few weeks later that rose bush burst into bloom like I’d never seen before. Hundreds of big white flowers, rich in perfume, hung over the back door, flowed into our yard, and showered the ground with beautiful petals.

My rose bush’s revival reminded me of Jesus’s parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:6-9. In Israel, it was customary to give fig trees three years to produce better fuuit. If they didin’t they were cut down so the soil could be better used. In Jesus’s story, a gardener asks his boss to give one particular tree a fourth year to produce. In context (vv.1-5), the parable implies this: the Israelites hadn’t lived as they should, and God could justly judge them. But God is patient and had given extra time for them to turn to Him, be forgiven, and bloom.

God wants all people to flourish and has given extra time so that they can. Whether we are still journeying toward faith or are praying for unbelieving family and friends, His patience is good news for all of us.

**I am the vine, You are the branches if you remain in me and I in you,
you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
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God has given the world extra time to respond to His offer of forgiveness.

[notforgotten]

Thank you God for your patience. Amen