Today’s passage is Mark 11:12-26. Jesus curses a fruitless fig tree because he’s hungry. He drives the sellers and money changers out of the temple courtyard. He says faith can move mountains. He says to forgive others so that our Heavenly Father will forgive us.
Are you fruitless to others’ needs?
What rules do you follow--God’s or your greed’s?
What mountain blocks your faith? Who do you need to forgive?
I am like the fig tree.
I look good from a distance but up close I have no fruit for someone in need of what I can supply.
My youngest daughter and her mother are in need of my money and my words of God’s love.
I am the husband of a believing wife, I am an international school principal who welcomes students of all nationalities, I am a member of a famous church that preaches a clear Christian message, and I am a small group leader who must be a model of QT, sharing my sins, and listening to others to give good prescriptions.
My leaves look good, but my fruit to my daughter is not there.
My fruit is absent because, though I follow many of God’s rules, my own desires interfere and override God.
I continually struggle with what I need to give to God but want to keep for myself: my time, my money, my choice of actions. Although I am utterly dependent on God for my very life, my greedy desire to control God’s abundance in my life for my own purposes.
My prayers for my family’s salvation do not go to God with my heartfelt belief.
I look at my old and sickly mother who resists hearing anything about Jesus and I feel almost hopeless.
I look at my beloved son and almost despair at his descent into the hell of a vague and dreamy pantheistic belief of universal goodness, organic food, and Indian singing bowls.
Today, though, I look at my own weakling faith and see my family’s resistance to God as the mountain I cannot believe will go jump in the sea.
Every week I hear examples of other people’s families coming to Christ but my own belief for mine remains puny, mouth-faith only.
I need to forgive my first wife who died of alcoholism.
She did a lot of good for me.
She was the first one who confronted me over my lack of focus, purpose and responsibility.
She saw an ad for a teacher in the newspaper and told me to apply because we needed the money and I had all the qualifications.
I was lost doing odd jobs, working construction and being a courier. I got the teaching position and discovered I was a teacher.
Until her alcoholism ruined her, she was a good wife and mother, living in hardship with me and our little children while I studied for university degrees that were supposed to lead to a happy life.
For many years, I cursed my first wife for much of my suffering.
Today’s passage convicted me of my sin of unforgiveness.
Application: send the money I need to send to my daughter. Write a letter of forgiveness to my first wife.
Lord, give me a believing heart.
