Millpond Ink Musing – As A Leaf

Does a leaf in the crown of a tree know from its heights the depth of its root or the richness of the ground as to know its longevity? Or, is it glad only to be so high up? Nonetheless…

As a leaf, and believing myself to have blossomed in the crown of Christ’s tree and part of a local church, I would do well to study to know that the tree from which I’m hanging has its root in God’s Word and that the tap root draws only and continually from the fountain of God. As for the quality of the ground, that is where many leaves fall early because the ground itself was hardened from the first; grew hardened over time as the heat of day struck clay or started out in sand with initial growth and zeal but the ground could not hold it. Yet, you still ask…

What does this all mean? To say a church believes in the Bible, which insinuates a depth of its roots, is not necessarily so; not if the ground has become hard packed in vain church genealogies, dead works or planted in the shifting sands of man’s contemporary doctrines; false teachers saying that what they preach is owned by Christ, but who themselves as their followers may well hear, “I never knew you.” Without the spiritual life and nutrient of the Spirit affirming the riches of the fruit and the depth of its root in the Scriptures, what will you find but open sores infested, rot and brittle limbs. There is nothing to prune when the Word of God is narrowly interpreted or examined. Pruning a dead tree cannot bring it life.

Such is the apostasy of a church in its winter, with many dead leaves left clinging to the fallen branches.