You Are Chosen, Dearly Loved, Kind, And Compassionate
I grew up attending church. I knew who Jesus was. And I believed in him as my Savior on some immature level. In my mid thirties, I attended a ladies retreat where I heard about the personal love of Christ and the relationship he offered me. For what felt like the first time, I recognized something I desperately wanted and inherently knew I did not have despite my church going history. That was the turning point in my faith. I intentionally confessed my need for and asked Jesus to be, not only my Savior, but also my Lord. My heart was on fire to know more and to learn more. I began to read my Bible, journaling my thoughts and questions. I thought I was a pretty good person. Little did I know there was some heavy work God needed to do in my heart.
When my family moved from Warner Robins, GA to Woodstock, GA in December of 2000 for my husband’s job, he likes to say I left claw marks all the way up I-75. For a lot of reasons, none of which were good, I was very unhappy. Without conscious thought, I began to wear that unhappiness. Over time, it settled in my heart as anger, resentment, and jealousy. I was angry with my husband, angry about work, I resented burdens I felt I was unfairly carrying. It all festered like an open, infected wound.
This whole time, I was attending church, Sunday school, and involved in Bible studies. I’d been on an Emmaus Walk, was serving in the Jr. High Ministry (why they let me do that, I do not know), and sang in the choir.
I did what many of us do. We present a façade – a pretty, dressed-up, holier-than-thou, got-it-all together outside while inside we are simmering with anger, crying with hurt, consumed with envy or pride, locked in bondage to addiction, lost without hope, closed off in judgment, or obsessed with material things. We do what we think we need to do to be a Christian. But we don’t address our “old self” heart issues. I was wearing Christian on the outside perfectly. But I was certainly not flourishing.
Jesus talks about the deadwood in our lives in his last words to the disciples captured in John 15:2 when he says that God, the Master Gardener, will cut off, cut out all the unproductive branches.
Deadwood is a spiritual condition that every single believer has to deal with. We come to Christ with all of our junk. All too often we mistakenly believe that all of that junk will magically go away and we will never experience it again. It doesn’t, and we will. Some of us have worn our old self for so long that it’s quite comfortable and easy to fall back into when we aren’t sticking close to Jesus.
Heart change that leads to flourishing only occurs when we submit our old, sinful, selves to God’s work. Click To Tweet
In this John 15:2 passage, cut out means to get rid of, make it so it isn’t there anymore. When Paul writes to the Ephesians and Colossians, he expounds on Jesus’ words by telling them to put off their old selves that is corrupted (Eph 4:22), or put to death whatever belongs to their earthly nature (Col 3:5). The deeper implication is to deprive that deadwood of power and destroy its strength. Get to the very root of the problem and make it so it has no ability, power, or strength to grow again. There is no room in our hearts as one who has already been made clean by the Word of Jesus for this kind of stuff. It interferes with the fruit-bearing work God wants to do in you and in me.
One of the things I most love about reading God’s Word is that there is rarely a time when God chastises us or raises up our sin without immediately following it up with his promise of restoration, renewal, rebuilding, and reconciliation. As I read God’s Word, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, this truth permeates my soul and causes my heart to quicken in hope. God never leaves us in the bad. He always points us to his future for us.
Immediately following Paul’s laundry list of our old-self uglies in his letters, he extols what God desires to do in our lives as believers. He extends the hope and the challenge that we can flourish. That we are meant to flourish. When the old self is gone, there is a new self to put on; one that is created to be like God, righteous and holy (Eph 4:23-24).
My heart smiles when I read Colossians 3:10 in the New Living Translation: “… put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.” Submitting to God’s master gardening is not about looking good on the outside or knowing God with just head knowledge. It’s all about drawing us closer to him, knowing him intimately with our hearts, and showing us how to live more like Christ.
The deadwood characteristics are jarring and can leave us in despair of ever bearing beautiful fruit. But true to his character, God doesn’t leave us there. Instead, Paul masterfully paints a beautiful mosaic of the Christ-image characteristics of our new self.
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Col 3:12).
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us …” (Eph 4:32 – 5:2a).
“But the fruit of the Spirit [which is Christ in us] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Gal 5:22-23, editorial comment and all emphases mine).
In Christ, God already sees us this way! These beautiful traits of holiness, love, forgiveness, and all the fruit of the Spirit are resident in us waiting to be cultivated, waiting for the room to grow. We have it in us to bear the image of Christ well.
The existence of deadwood in our lives means we have a lack of these new self and fruit of the Spirit characteristics. It is a simple, but often difficult, truth.
Anger issues indicate we are not clothing ourselves in love and patience. Resentment arises when we are not cultivating kindness, compassion, or forgiveness. If we have language or other bad habit issues, we haven’t tended to the fruit of self-control or gentleness. These characteristics are there! God’s Word assures us of this! Cutting out the deadwood creates space for this beauty to become our reality. We just need to tap into the power available to us for them to bloom.
Deadwood happens in our lives before Christ. Deadwood happens in our lives after Christ. The question is never do we, or will we, have deadwood. The question is: What will we do when we recognize it? The ugliest deadwood in my life came while I was a believer. But I had severed myself from the vine and was not seeking God through his Word. I was going through the motions but not actually drinking from the living water.
Deadwood is a spiritual issue. Flourishing is a spiritual reality God desires for us. Jesus tells us he is the vine. We are the branches. In and of ourselves, we cannot bear his good fruit. When we connect in and stay firmly attached to Jesus, God promises we will flourish. He has changed me. He can change you too.
