A Time To Uproot

I have to pull up these cucumber plants. 

They’ve been growing for a month and a half. They bloom and bloom and bloom, but they never bear any fruit. Their growth is so prolific,   that they have started to choke out the other plants in my garden that do grow fruit. If I don’t pull up these cucumber plants, they will take over my garden and all my fruit bearing plants will die. I have to remove these two beautiful, yet useless plants to save the rest of my garden. 

I must admit, I’ve wrestled with destroying these two plants. Their foliage and blooms are tantalizingly deceptive. I keep thinking, “I’ll give them another week, surely I’ll see a cucumber by then.” But the week passes, and still there is no fruit. Only showy foliage and blooms that never produce anything. As I’ve wrestled with pulling up these two plants, they’ve reminded me of the current state of the church. 

The landscape of visible Christendom is covered with showy foliage and blooms, but there is very little spiritual substance that is actually produced. It grows and grows, and blooms and blooms, and it has taken over the garden, choking out the plants that actually have fruit. God will not sacrifice His garden for plants that may look beautiful, but are worthless for bearing fruit. God desires spiritual substance, not spiritual showmanship. 

And even though I may wrestle with finally making the call to pull up these worthless plants to save the rest, God does not. 

(Rev 2:4,5) But I have this against you: You have abandoned your first love. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

(Luke 13:5-9) “I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone again this year, until I dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine. But if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

(Heb 6:7,8) Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God. But land that produces thorns and thistles is worthless, and its curse is imminent. In the end it will be burned.

(Matt 3:10) The axe lies ready at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.