Which Tree Are You?
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had a choice. They could choose the Tree of Life, or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which brought death.
You have the same choice.
In Deuteronomy 30:19, Moses spoke to God’s people, saying,
“Today I am giving you a choice of two ways. And I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses of your choice. **You can choose life or death. **The first choice will bring a blessing. The other choice will bring a curse. So choose life! Then you and your children will live” (ERV).
The same two trees that were available to Adam and Eve in the Garden are available for us today. In fact, we will all choose one or the other.
The Tree of Life is rooted and grounded in love. This is the good life that God intends for us. This is the life that can become reality for us when we follow His guidance and respond correctly to His signals in life. Then we ourselves will be rooted and grounded in love. We will live our lives from a motivation of love, rather than fear. We will become like Jesus. His nature will become our nature because God is love.
“May He grant you out of the riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being and personality], so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].”—Ephesians 3:16-19 (AMP)
“If a root is holy, the branches will be holy too.”—Romans 11:16 (CEB)
“Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving.”—Colossians 2:7 (AMPC)
As Jesus said,
“Abide in me, and I will abide in you. Just as the branch cannot produce fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who abides in me while I abide in him produces much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”—John 15:4-5 (ISV)
We were meant to be rooted and grounded in love. When we are rooted in the pure, genuine love that only comes from God, then we grow up into a Tree of Life. We are healthy, strong, and prosperous—body, soul, and spirit.
The literal Tree of Life is described in the last chapter of the Bible. It is now very near to the throne of God Himself. Everything about it is good. Its fruit contains the life of God. Even its leaves bring healing. This is a picture of what your own life can be like when you diligently follow God’s guidance and respond correctly to His signals in life, as we see in Psalm 1:1-3:
“Blessed (happy, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice, their plans and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful [and the mockers] gather.
“But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His law (the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually meditates (ponders and studies) by day and by night.
“And he shall be like a tree firmly planted [and tended] by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season; its leaf also shall not fade or wither; and everything he does shall prosper [and come to maturity].” (AMPC)
On the other hand, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil has a very different root system. Its fruit is toxic and leads to destruction and death.
You will choose to become one or the other. Your choices will determine whether you will grow up to become a tree of life that is rooted and grounded in love or a tree of knowledge of good and evil whose toxic fruit brings destructive consequences.
Roots of Bitterness
“Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. **Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up **to trouble you, corrupting many.”—Hebrews 12:15 (NLT)
In the Garden of Eden, God allowed the first man to choose, but God warned him firmly and clearly of the consequences of choosing the tree with the bad roots.
We all have the same choice. We all must choose. You will choose one or the other.
We can either grow to become a tree of life and produce the good fruit of love, peace, joy, health, contentment, and fulfillment or we will grow into just a tree of knowledge of good and evil. If we are not rooted and grounded in love, then our lives will be rooted in bitterness.
A person who grows to become a tree of knowledge of good and evil operates in the realm of the soul. This person is ruled by his own mind, his own emotions, and his own will. This is a self-centered person who serves his own needs and desires. This person’s life is rooted in bitterness and motivated by fears.
But a person who grows to become a tree of life rises above the limitations of the soul realm to live and move in the higher realm of the spirit. This person is ruled by conscience (Acts 24:16); by wisdom from above (James 3:17); not following his own ideas and opinions, but he lives in open communion with God and responds to God’s promptings. He does not live for himself but is motivated by a higher purpose to serve God and others. This person’s life is rooted and grounded in love.
“Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water? Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring.
“If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
“But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.”—James 3:11-18 (NLT)
As long as we choose to respond appropriately to God’s signals, and we act in agreement with the grace that God gives us, we can stay rooted and grounded in love as we grow to become a mature tree of life.
Our troubles begin when we reject the grace that God gives us. When we reject His guidance, His signals, His instructions, His promptings, then we are headed for deep, deep trouble.
**When we resist the grace of God in any area, our pride allows a root of bitterness to spring up, and we begin to exchange God’s best for a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. **
At that point, when we convince ourselves that God is wrong, and that we have a better way, bitterness takes root in our heart, because we are believing a lie. We have convinced ourselves that God has been holding out on us; that there is something better for us outside of God’s will.
As a result, that old serpent in the Garden of Eden claims more victims—us!
“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.”—Romans 1:21 (NLT)
We feel offended by God. We may feel that God is to blame for our hurts, our suffering, and our problems.
“How terrible it will be for those who argue with the God who made them. They are like one piece of broken pottery among many pieces. The clay does not ask the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ The thing that is made doesn’t say to its maker, ‘You have no hands.’ How terrible it will be for the child who says to his father, ‘Why are you giving me life?’ How terrible it will be for the child who says to his mother, ‘Why are you giving birth to me?’”—Isaiah 45:9-10 (ICB)
We may not even be aware of these feelings. Most bitter people aren’t aware that they are bitter.
We may not even link our feelings to a bitterness against God because He did not hurt us directly, but someone else hurt us or offended us. Without knowing it, we may carry a bitterness against God because we feel that He did not protect us (or the people we care about) from being hurt.
Moses strongly cautioned the people of God about this.
“You know firsthand how we used to live in Egypt and how we passed right through the nations that you passed through. You saw the horrific things, the filthy idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, that they had with them. Make sure there isn’t any one among you right now—male or female, clan or tribe—whose mind is turning from being with the Lord our God in favor of going to serve these nations’ gods. Make sure there isn’t any root among you that is sprouting poison and bitterness. When that kind of person hears the words of this agreement, they congratulate themselves, thinking: I’ll be fine even though I insist on being stubborn.”—Deuteronomy 29:16-19 (CEB)
Moses went on to describe the utter destruction that would come from those kinds of choices.
Once this bitterness is allowed to take root in our hearts, it proceeds to spread its poison into every area of our lives. Bitterness poisons our relationship with God, it distorts our character and personality, it damages our marriages and family relationships, friendships, work relationships, financial dealings, and damages our health. As we interact with others, this poison in our hearts infects them as well, defiling and corrupting them as we influence them to turn from the love of God and embrace offenses.
“Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so **their root shall be like rottenness **and their blossom shall go up like fine dust—because they have rejected and cast away the law and the teaching of the Lord of hosts and have not believed but have treated scornfully and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”—Isaiah 5:24 (AMPC)
