Message: This morning I noticed a parallel between two stories in Mark 11. The first is when he is hungry as he is walking along and he discovers a fig tree with no fruit so he curses it and later on when they come back around the disciples see that the tree he cursed had withered. We see a lot of stories of Jesus healing people, but this is the first time we see Jesus curse anything. The purpose of the tree was to produce fruit, and since it was not producing fruit, Jesus cursed it. Then when he reaches the temple complex he sees the temple being used as a marketplace and he becomes enraged and flips the tables and runs the merchants all out of there. He reminds them that the purpose of the temple was for prayer, and they had defiled it’s purpose. In both cases Jesus observed things that were not being used for the intended purpose and he had the authority to destroy the things that opposed the intended purpose. We have a purpose too and we need to destroy the things in our lives that are not being used for their intended purpose and when we do, God will cause them to thrive.
Command: Destroy the things in my life that oppose my purpose because they will make me unfruitful.
Promise: When I am walking in my intended purpose, God will cause those things to thrive and grow.
Warning: When there are things in my life that oppose my intended purpose, I become unfruitful.
Application: I need to evaluate the “trees” in my life and destroy the ones that are unfruitful. Which trees am I spending my resources on watering that should be used in other places. I need to evaluate each one and determine whether they oppose my purpose, or whether they accomplish my purpose. If they oppose my purpose they will cause me to be unfruitful and those things need to be destroyed. For me personally, I need to eliminate the time wasters. When I waste time on pointless things it takes away time I need to complete the fruitful things in my life and I can’t get that time back. I need to have time to relax and recharge but those times need to be intentional, and not just me slipping off into non productive distractions when I should be fruitful. This is a really big one for me because when I waste time on unscheduled and unfruitful things, I struggle to balance the other things in my life that I am trying to maintain. This adds unnecessary stress and it limits my creativity.
