2025 Devotions Week 37

THE TREE OF LIFE
Luke 8

“A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”

In the story of the fall of man in Genesis 3, we are told that God made sure that man has no access to the tree of life, placing a cherubim with a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

It is my imagination of course but I thought what this farmer is sowing are the seeds of the tree of life. Through Christ, God can now pave the way to life and he does so by sowing the seeds of the Gospel. The important question is how to grow this seed.

There are those who never entertained the thought of life in the hereafter and Satan makes sure that they remain in their delusion. However the seed is not sown only once. Through Christ, God has an abundance of seeds to sow and at some point, for some people, the seed is received for what it is: life. 

But because people don’t understand the fact that the seed needs to grow—it is useless if it remains a seed—they do not bother to allow the seed space to take root. They stubbornly cling to themselves and their ways and soon the seed dies. The Gospel is not a ticket to life; it is the seed of life.

But the farmer persists. He makes use of life situations and life lessons and even life relationships to soften the heart. And some of these softened hearts receive the seed afresh and take the Gospel to heart.

But these hearts are crowded with ambition and desires that compete with the Gospel that is growing within. The farmer could control the weeds and thorns but it is the heart that decides what it wants to give itself to. In time the shoot became stunted and could not grow into the tree because the heart has settled into a pattern of life and priorities.

The truth, however, is even greater than this tale of the seeds of the tree of life because the life in us is the life of the Son of God born from his blood shed for us. When Christ in us (and us in Christ) fully matures we will be God’s children. But is it so for those who clearly show in their choices their willingness to invest in only a stunted tree in order to nourish their ambitions and desires? Will God accept such a deal that involves the sacrifice of his Son?

This is the secret of the Gospel seed sown in our hearts and Jesus tells us that we must do our best to ensure that it survives and flourish in us by our attention, retention and perseverance so that our hearts become truly noble and good.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”