BRENDA CONNORS - DEVOTIONALS WITH MY BLUE THREAD SISTERS

Mark 11:12-14 The Fig Tree Withered 

(Matt. 21:18, 19 )

^{11 12} ¶ Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. ¹³ And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴ In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it.

—— It isn’t that Jesus just got the fig season wrong. It wasn’t that the fig tree didn’t have figs because it wasn’t supposed to. The problem is that it had leaves but didn’t have figs. The leaves said, “There are figs here,” but the figs weren’t there.

This of course is not a message about figs but is a message about how Jesus views religious people, who appear to have the leaves of the relationship with God but have no fruit. Putting on a pretense of believing, but not believing is what Jesus is addressing here.

This is the only destructive miracle Jesus did and it is a picture of the Jewish rulers and their followers, which He will address coming up next. There were many trees with only leaves, and these were not cursed. There were many trees with neither leaves nor fruit, and these were not cursed. This tree was cursed because it professed to have fruit but did not.

These people who were religious were exactly as this tree, professing with their religious outer trappings, like the leaves, that they had a pretense of a relationship with God, but they had no fruit.

God really does want a life given over to Him, He wants us not to simply say the words of belief and then go on and live our lives the same, but not only wants lip service, but He desires that we give over our lives to Him. We let go of what we think our life should be about and trust Him to use us for His purposes.

It is easy to say, but so hard to do. It is like putting your very last coin in the offering plate and trusting God to provide.

So important for our walk to match our talk. To just do religion by rote and have no relationship with the Creator is so damaging to ourselves and others. People see leaves and follow to get the fruit but end up believing they have fruit when their lives are a tree empty of fruit. It really is a tragic thing to realize that not only have you been led astray but have been attracting others to follow you.

If any of a relationship with Jesus leads people to us instead of Him, we are a fig tree with leaves but no fruit. I never want to live like that.

Lord I pray for all of us to have a real and personal relationship with our Savior where He produces fruit a plenty with our lives.

Used with permission from one or the original BlueThreads - Brenda Connors of DEVOTIONAL SHARING WITH MY BLUE THREAD SISTERS