I want to talk to you today about the Lord’s will for your life. I want to talk about it as a tree. So what I am trying to say is that sometimes what happens to you is God’s will for you, and it is as if you could say, the tree fit me.
When we go shopping for clothes we don’t usually find the right shirt or pants that fit just right in the first piece or item of clothing we find. We have to try a few things on until we find the one that fits just right. Then we can go home because we found the one that fit. God’s will for our life is like that – it fits.
In the Bible we can find some stories about trees that fit people. One example is a man by the name of Absalom. Absalom was king David’s son, and as it so often with power, other people want to kill anyone in order get to be the person who is in power. The warlords in Somalia are like that. They will kill people from other clans, or other armies, so they can be the ones in power. Well, Absalom decided to kill his father David so that he could be king. But his plans didn’t work out and he had to escape on a mule. As he rode through the forest to try and escape David’s men, here is what happened:
“During the battle, Absalom happened to come upon some of David’s men. He tried to escape on his mule, but as he rode beneath the thick branches of a great tree, his hair got caught in the tree. His mule kept going and left him dangling in the air.”
David’s men came along and stabbed him in the heart tree times until Absalom died. Absalom could have said the tree fit me because he deserved what he got. Absalom deserved his fate because he was a traitor and a murderer. The tree fit him. His fate fit him.
Jesus had at least two instances where it could be said of him that the tree fit him. Jesus came to earth from heaven. Jesus was the invisible eternal Son of God and entered the body of a baby to be born into this world. Jesus’ mission was to go to the cross and die for our sins. Jesus was born a King because He was God. The soldiers knew that Jesus had called Himself a king so in order to make fun of him this is what they did:
“The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they put a purple robe on him.”
Thorns grow on trees, and the soldiers made a crown out of those thorns and put it on Jesus’ head. It was for this reason that Jesus came. He came to take the humiliation and punishment for our sins upon Himself. A part of this was to wear the crown of thorns. It can be said of the crown of thorns, the tree fit me. Jesus came to wear that crown and it fit Him perfectly. He wore it so that we could be free from the humiliation and power of sin. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour He takes away our fears and puts peace into our hears.
There was another tree that fit Jesus. That tree was the cross. We don’t often think of the cross as a tree, but in this case, it’s true. In fact, some places in the New Testament that talk about Jesus, in Arabic it is called the Injil, talk about the cross as a tree. For example,
“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.”
The cross is referred to as a tree. Jesus died on a tree. They took some nails as the tree was lying on the ground and Jesus lay down on the cross. No one had to force Jesus onto the cross, He lay down upon it willingly. This is what it says in the Bible:
“No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”
They took the nails and nailed Jesus to the tree. They put one nail in one wrist or hand, and another nail in the other wrist or hand. Then they took another nail, put one foot over the other one, and nailed his feet to the cross. The tree fit Him. It was made just for Him. They lifted the tree up into the air and planed it into the hole they had dug into the ground. There was Jesus, hanging on the cross, perhaps still wearing the crown of thorns upon His head. It fit Him. That was His destiny.
Maybe you are going through a hard time, a tough time, where people are persecuting you because you are a Christian. Life is hard because you are a Christian and you cannot do things other people do and have the freedom to do the things that they do. But our destiny is different from the people of the world. They have their destiny and we have ours. They have their tree that fits, and we have ours.
Sometimes things happen in our lives that we don’t like, and perhaps the devil has come along and planted some bad seeds into our lives. Maybe the devil has planted some bad trees in our lives and we are forced to eat the fruit from the tree that the devil has planted. The devil’s tree is not the tree for us.
In those cases we should pray and ask God to remove the tree from our lives. If we are able to throw a mountain into the ocean, like Jesus said, then we can also throw a tree into the ocean. Sometimes we have some fruit and trees that don’t belong in our lives. Maybe we are addicted to something and it doesn’t belong in our lives. Let us pray and cast it out together. Maybe we have some sickness that doesn’t belong in our lives. Let us cast it out together. Maybe we have some fears or other negative thoughts that don’t belong in our lives. Let’s cast them out. Maybe we have some sinful behaviours that we are doing and we shouldn’t be doing them. Let’s get rid of them.
Jesus said that if we have faith like a small seed we can pray for anything and it will happen. A seed can grow up into a tree. A tree can be a beautiful plan that God has for our lives, just as he showed King Nebuchadnezzar in a dream, a large tree represented blessings and prosperity. Wherever we are and whatever we are going through, God is wanted to bless us like a large tree that bears a lot of fruit.
Jesus is the tree of life. We are to feed upon Him. Let’s pray.