What Can Be Said 005

I believe I was talking about “potatoes” when last I left off. Perhaps you are aware or maybe not, but potatoes are a wonderful blessing from God. I know what you’re thinking. Potatoes? Have you ever left a bag of potatoes in the refrigerator crisper department too long and found that when you remembered that they were there they had a strange looking growth all over them? Kind of like tentacles or something? Did you know that you can cut a potato into two or three pieces and dig a hole in the ground and after a few weeks they will begin to grow the plant in which potatoes come from? As well, after a while you will begin to see little purple flowers blossom? Then in the fall you can dig up that plant and you will find a rather large bunch of potatoes have grown from that piece you planted back in the spring of the year.

Ok, that doesn’t work in Florida (I’ve tried it). We have a very small ant called the, “Sugar Ant” that will find the piece of potato and he and all his little buddies will devour it! But I have seen this first hand back on the farm.

But back to my point. The plant when it began to grow got its nourishment from that small piece of potato and the potatoes that grew later got there nourishment from the plant.

I’m getting to the real point, I promise. So here it is. At no time during the life of this vegetable did or could it have ever grown on its own. Neither the plant nor the potatoes were able to come to a completion without being reliant on another source.

Where am I going with all this horticultural babble? (Ephesians 3:17-19) …so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

(Rooted, Grounded… Potatoes)? (wink wink)

People, we can no sooner do this by any means of our own than the potato can grow and produce on its own! Earlier in this same chapter the Apostle Paul says, (3:2-3a) “assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation“.

Paul was speaking to the Ephesians concerning the Gentiles. He said in (3:6) This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

Those who have received salvation through Christ, who have been rooted and grounded in love, strengthened to comprehend, filled with the fullness of God, must come to the realization that there was/is no human possibility that we could do these things or come to know these things with out being reliant on a source other than ourselves.

This is not a difficult concept to understand, (1Peter 2:9) But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Like the potato, we can do nothing to get to our conclusion. We must stop trying to do this ourselves. We have been seeded from an imperishable source. All we need to do is obey God's Word and allow God to make us grow. That’s it. We can not do anything to cause ourselves to blossom. However by making poor choices we can make the growing experience more difficult on ourselves. Lord help me to become more reliant on you. In the name of Jesus. Continued...