Discipleship 101
a beginner's guide to
Christianity
Chapter 21
The purpose of blessings
How do we respond to the life God has given us? One important aspect of our
response is a willingness to help other people. The
good things God gives us should be used to serve others.
People
often ask why God allows trials. When we are in a trial, we want to know why.
Why has this pain come upon us? Why me? We may even stay awake at night thinking
about it, praying about it.
But have we ever considered why God
allows blessings? We usually don't lie awake at night wondering why God has
allowed such a thing to happen to us. We act like it's normal for God to give us
a good life. We usually accept these blessings, give thanks and enjoy them
without a lot of further thought.
But we really do not deserve
blessings, so when they come, we ought to ask, Why? God doesn't owe us anything.
He has not promised us health and wealth. Yet every one of us has blessings, and
we need to ask, Lord, why has this happened to me?
What is normal?
The parable of the fig tree in Luke
13 gives us an illustration about blessings. If we start in verse 1 we will see
the context of the parable: "There were some present at that time who told
Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their
sacrifices."
And it seems that the people
assumed the victims were somehow more sinful than others. That was the thought
Jesus answered in verse 2: "Do you think that these Galileans were worse
sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you,
no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
The common assumption was that
people got what they deserved, that pain and suffering are a result of sin. But
the cause is not always the sin of the people who are suffering. Sin hurts
innocent people—that is one reason that God hates it so much—so people who
suffer are often suffering because of someone else's sin.
The people of Jerusalem used an
example of Galileans who suffered. Now Jesus uses an example of Jerusalemites
who suffered: "Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on
them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in
Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish"
(verses 4-5).
In this fallen world, disasters are
normal, and our response to them should be repentance. That is the context of
the parable of the fig tree.
A tree with a purpose
Then Jesus told the parable:
"A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and 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 for one more year, and I'll dig around it and
fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down'
" (verses 6-9).
The owner could have used the space
for grapevines, but he wanted figs, so he planted a fig tree. But the tree
wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. The owner made a business decision: Get
rid of it. It's just taking up space.
Jesus was not giving us
agricultural advice. The parable is not really about trees—it is about people.
When Jesus first gave the parable, he was talking about the Jewish people. But
the same principle applies to Christians today. God wants people to bear
fruit—good results. He wants them to love him, but most people are just taking
up space, doing nothing in particular. But God did not create us to do
nothing—he created us to do good works (Ephesians 2:10). Good works are not for
our own benefit, just as fruit does not benefit the tree that produced it—good
works are to help others.
God doesn't want us doing nothing.
He made us for more than being selfish. We are to love our neighbors. That means
doing something. It means producing fruit. It means making a difference in other
peoples' lives. Of course, we can't fill every need
of every person. But each of us is able to help some people in some ways. Are we
a blessing to other people?
Blessings for the tree
But Jesus also offers forgiveness.
The parable doesn't end with the removal of the fig tree. It has a different
twist, and that's what we need to focus on now. The vinedresser asks for
patience and mercy. Wait, he says, let me give the tree some special attention.
Let me dig around it and put in some manure to fertilize the tree. And if it
still doesn't produce any fruit, then we'll cut it down.
The vinedresser is saying, in
effect, Let me give this tree lots of blessings, and if it doesn't start
producing fruit after it has been blessed, then we'll get rid of it. So, if we
have blessings in our lives, perhaps we should consider them as fertilizer given
to us so that we will bear some fruit and do some good and not just take up
space.
We have all had times in our lives
when we have been unfruitful. God is patient and merciful. He gives us blessings
anyway, with the hope that we will begin to bear fruit again. We deserve
punishment, but sometimes we get grace and blessings, and the purpose is that we
bear fruit. Blessings afford us an opportunity to be a blessing to others.
Can't judge by appearances
If someone saw the tree being
fertilized, he might assume that the tree was especially good to deserve such
treatment. But the truth would be the opposite. In this case, the tree with blessings is the
bad tree.
Likewise, a person who is being
richly blessed may not be particularly righteous. Maybe the person is, but maybe not —
the
blessings may have been given because the person was unfruitful. He or she is being
fertilized in the hope that those blessings will help the person become a blessing to
other people.
This parable challenges some common
assumptions. People don't always get what they deserve. People who have trials
may have been fruitful Christians. It may be that they are simply being pruned
for a while to help them produce more fruit in the future.
And on the other hand, when we are
blessed with abundance, we would like to think that we are being rewarded for
good behavior. Perhaps, but it's not necessarily so.
Even worse, when we have blessings
we find it easy to look down on people who have trials. But the well-fertilized
tree is not necessarily better than the vines that have been pruned. We cannot
judge by appearances.
Blessings are for sharing
It is easy for people to receive
blessings and enjoy them for themselves. Ironically, though, blessings can
distract us from God and into ourselves. But blessings are given to us so that
we might produce more fruit, and if we don't, there is a word of warning here.
Blessings are a sign of God's grace, that is, his goodness to us even though we
don't deserve it, not a reward for good works. We need to use them in the way
that God wants.
Grace is given to us so that we
will bear fruit for God and for other people, so that we might help others and
become a blessing to others. Grace enables us to become a conduit of God's love
and grace and blessing to others.
Just as he has loved us, we should
also love others. Just as he has been forgiving toward us, we should be
forgiving toward others. Just as he has been generous with us, we should be
generous with others.
Let us think about how we might use
our physical blessings for God's glory. We all have spiritual blessings, too,
and we need to think about how God may want us to bear fruit with those, to use
them for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7).
Blessings are wonderful, and as
God's people, we can learn how to share them with others, just as God shares his
good gifts with us.
Joseph Tkach
To
the next article in this series: What is the church? |
