Tree of Life

 

The Tree of Life features at the beginning and end of the Bible. After their fall Adam and Eve were banished from the garden so that they could no longer access the fruit of the tree, to do so would have meant living  eternally in a corrupted state. Presumably the Tree of Life was destroyed during the Great Flood. Subsequently the whole human race existed without the LIFE God had intended. Pragmatically Jesus once stated "…let the dead bury their own dead." [Matthew 8:22]. Every human being begins their life separated from divine LIFE. Yet Jesus restores LIFE back to all who would receive Him; Revelation 22: 14 states the obedient shall again have the right to the Tree of Life.

God restores spiritual life and wills that His people  enjoy the abundant life Jesus promised [John 10:10]. Yet even before Christ came there were ways man could experience spiritual life, the Book of Proverbs mentions four things that will become like a tree of life to those who do them. These four things are repeated in New Testament teachings and they help understand how to draw more from the spiritual life God has birthed within every true follower of Jesus Christ. 

1. Wisdom

James cites two kinds of wisdom we can live by [James 3:13-18]

• The wisdom of man, which is soulish (self-seeking) 
• Heavenly wisdom, which is spiritual (God honouring) 

The wisdom of man says, ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’; it’s the wisdom of personal advantage gained through certain actions, ways of relating or decisions. In contrast Jesus taught a wisdom that feels obnoxious to the natural mind, the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-10)
   
Kingdom wisdom connects us to blissful divine life. We have the choice to live with a worms eye view or Birds Eye view of life. 

• The worm is earth bound and can only burrow around in dirt, dirt and more dirt.
• The bird ascends upward and views the world  from the sky. 

2. Good Fruit 

We can find a ‘Tree of Life’ in good fruit. When God created the heavens and the earth the scripture said that He saw it as good, I can image the Lord with great satisfaction looking on at what He created. He enjoyed seeing the result of all His work and in a similar way we too find great joy at seeing the Holy Spirit bringing good fruit from our lives. Satan degraded man's sense of satisfaction to worldly things but through the Holy Spirit we can be satisfied from a better source; a source that comes directly from God.
  Jesus emphasised the secret life with God as the prerequisite to enjoying the Father's favour (see Matthew 6), we are able to enjoy a higher quality life when pleasing God matters more than pleasing man. 
 

3. Desire Fulfilled 

We all have desires and fulfilled good desires enrich our of lives.The devil used misplaced desires to entrap Eve and that desire led her away from the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:6). Ungodly desires will always lead to dissatisfaction and misery because draw us away from the Source of Life, abundant living comes through cultivating good desires that the Lord is all to pleased to fulfil. In writing about temptation and wrong desires James wrote:
  Father God takes delight in seeing His children blessed and will always respond to good desires but will ignore all wrong desires. (See James 4: 1-3) 
 

• Hannah strongly desired a son, brought her request before the Lord and Lord gave her Samuel. I'm sure she was the proudest mother in Israel as she saw how the Lord was using her boy. 
• Abraham and Sarah also desired a child, which God fulfilled but also made Abraham the great father of faith. 

In fact as we trace the lives of many of the people God brought into His purpose desire was a key element. 

4. Satisfying Speech 

Proverbs 15:4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit. 
1 Peter 3:10 "He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit.

There's no escaping the  words we speak profoundly influence our lives but sometimes we forget this reality. James described the tongue as being the rudder of a ship which determines the direction of our lives. (see James 3:4) Words are spiritual and have the potential to frame blessing or cursing in our lives.

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

This should be of no surprise considering God created all things through speaking words and we have been created in His image. There are spiritual laws that govern our lives and what we confess can be life altering, for example scripture says that when someone believes in their heart that Jesus was raised from the dead and confess with their mouth He is Lord they shall be saved (Romans 10: 10). Revelation 12:11 says the word of our testimony will overcome the devil and Jesus used words to repel Satan's temptations (Matthew 4: 1-11). 

Proverbs 12:18 There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise promotes health.
 

God has actually put a lot of things in our own control, in many ways we can determine the quality of our lives by simply choosing to live by God's wisdom as revealed in the scriptures, spending quality time alone with God in yielding to the Holy Spirit , cultivating and bringing good desires to God, and being intentional with our words. 

Galaltians 6:7-10 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.