Thursday, November 09, 2006
The Fruit, the Seed and the Weed
“But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your[d] works, and I will show you my faith by my[e] works.” James 2:18
I have often struggled to understand this concept of being faith-oriented versus being service-oriented. Walk with God or serve God? Let’s take the recent event as an example. Clearly Ted Haggard was serving God. Was he walking with God? I would think somewhere along the line the works became dead and faithless. Works and faith cannot be separated.
Thank God for the revelation unveiled recently. I shall attempt to explain the relationship between faith and works. As my title suggests, faith is likened to the seed of a fruit, and works the fruit of the seed. The interesting thing is, does the seed come first or the fruit come first (sounds like the chicken or egg question huh)? If I apply it to my conversion it was the fruit that came first. I took the fruit that came from someone else’s life and used it to nurture my faith. The thing is, did I take the person’s fruit and just take it to be mine? It will surely rot! There have been times in my life when I just read a book and try to emulate the lifestyle of the person and find that it dies off after a while (fruit has rot). I learned then that the only thing that you can extract out of a lesson is a seed. Don’t matter if you learned it from the Bible, a preacher, an author, or a word from God. You get a seed. Some call it belief. Others call it faith. But it’s a seed all the same. And seeds will grow in the way you nurture it to grow. “I will show you my faith by my works” This means by my fruit you can see how I’ve been nurturing my seed. Prayer, Meditating on the Word, Those who know about horticulture will know about this phenomenon called weeds. They are not planted by you, but somehow they grow along side your seed. If not removed it chokes the seed and it dies. I love planting. Did it for a good two years as a business. It taught me a lot. Now I’m in the business of horticulture again. The plant? Myself.
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” John 12:24
Mantou at 4:06 PM