God was on a mission to love and save someone. His chosen people were the Israelites, the Jewish people. But, the Jews turned on Jesus and didn’t accept the love and salvation offered by God. So, here’s what happened – Jesus made room for US!
God’s love would not be stopped. His offer of salvation would not go unclaimed. So, God sent Paul to reach the Gentiles.
The Gentiles were people who worshiped many gods. They had a god for practically everything. They were not the original chosen ones from the lineage of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. But space was made for them in the family of God and they were grated in. That’s who we are! We are not the originals – we are the grafted in girls, the ones who could have been left out, but saved by grace and given a place in the family!
Paul teaches this miraculous process of being grafted in by using the example of an olive tree in Romans 11.
Olive trees represented peace with God and fruitfulness returning to the earth. Remember after God flooded the earth and wiped out everyone outside of the ark, the rain finally stopped and Noah sent a dove out to fly over the waters in search for dry land. One day the dove brought back an olive leaf in it’s beak, signifying the waters were receding and the land was coming back to life again. It was time to begin again.
There were two kinds of olive trees. The pure, cultivated olive tree – and the wild olive tree. The cultivated olive tree grows slow, but produces great quality olives. The wild olive tree grows fast, but produces poor quality olives. The olive farmer learned to cut off the old branches from the good quality tree and graft in the lively branches of the wild tree. This grafting wouldn’t change the cultivated olive tree itself, but it would change the grafted branches and therefore change their fruit. The life from the original tree would begin flowing through the wild branches and produce fast growing, quality olives.
This is a picture of what God does for us and through us.
We were not part of the original tree, but we’ve been grafted in. Space has been made for us. His love would not be stopped, so he searched us out, called us to him, and removed us from the life we once lived and now lets his life flow through us. How absolutely miraculous! As a result, our life produces radically different fruit. We are changed because of the life source we are attached to.
My sister, we get to share in what we don’t deserve. God makes us part of something so much better. As a wild olive tree, there’s nothing we could have ever done to be good enough. We could have never self-produced anything of good enough quality. We couldn’t have worked our way in. But God so graciously removed us from what we had been growing in, and grafted us into him. We’re now growing in God’s family tree. His life flows through us and we are forever changed.
Every promise ever made to the original tree of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, now belongs to us because we have been grafted in! God’s favor and blessings are now ours.
But, there’s a warning. When the chosen ones stopped trusting God, they were cut off from the tree. And the same thing can happen to us. Romans 11:22, “But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off.”
When we stop trusting in God, we are cut off from peace. Have you noticed how upset, worried and overwhelmed you become when you stop trusting God and start trying to control everything on your own? Yip, that’s what it feels like to be cut off. There’s no peace.
When we stop trusting in God, we are cut off from his guidance. God wants to guide you, but he will not force the foot that will not lift in faith. So, you become stuck and confused and feel like you don’t know what to do next. That’s what it feels like to be cut off.