The Pattern of Planning and Planting of the Lord

UV 2828/10000 The Pattern of Planning and Planting
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified
Isaiah 61 v 3

The words, “to appoint” in this wonderful uni-verse implies that the Lord plans and plants every believer to reveal His glory, His grace and mercy. The deceiver wants every human to turn into a wild vine that grows without plan or purpose, to be eventually cut and thrown into the fire. But the Lord’s plan is that no one shall mourn in Zion or His kingdom. The Lord beautifies the humble with salvation. In other words, He makes the lives beautiful of those who humble themselves to agree that they have come short of His holy and absolute standards. He first wipes their tears of repentance. He turns their godly sorrow into joy eternal, not joy temporal or worldly and temporary by anointing them with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. He gives them the clothes of salvation to cover their spiritual nakedness and shame. The Lord replaces the ashes of our past defeats, failures and misery with the beauty of victory, success and fulfillment. The spirit of “hamartia” or shortcoming, failure, misery , weakness and spiritual poverty is replaced with the spirit of “hyperbole” or the spirit of fulfilment and overshooting the target or being, doing and having much more than we can ask, think or imagine.
No more do we have to cower in fear and shame behind the fig leaves of respectability and sham. The fear of the holiness of God keeps us from our past patterns of sin. We might be weighed down by many earthly sorrows but the hope of eternal life in Christ fills us with heavenly joy. Instead of complaining, murmuring or grieving or being depressed and downcast, we now have a million reasons to praise and thank the Lord every moment of our lives.
We are grafted onto the root of Jesus so that we grow spiritually , holistically and in every sense. We are nurtured with His word. A tree bears fruit only when it is mature. We grow to maturity when we bear abundantly in terms of quality as well as quantity the fruit of spirit and of a righteous Christ-like character with traits like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self control. When we bear such fruit of character, we glorify the Lord. Even our numerous leaves or the words we speak, think, pray or write are meant for the healing and blessing of people of all nations. Nothing is wasted in the kingdom of God or His economy. We are planted by the Lord. He waters us continually with His word, the water of life. He satisfies our inner hunger and thirst for righteousness. We grow to be in size, girth, strength and beauty like cedars of Lebanon. We are the branches of righteousness from one root- Jesus. Our response is to remain deeply and firmly rooted in Him. It is not enough to be a big tree but we need to be a fruit bearing fig tree. It is indeed amazing to note that the Lord hungers for the fruit of our lives. We have before us the choice to be the fig tree that did not bear fruit to satisfy the hunger of the Lord and He was compelled to command it to wither or the fig tree that bears fruit in season and out of season or in other in tough times and good times. We stand tall and set apart from the rest of humanity in terms of our dignity and integrity. Even without the opening of our mouths, our very lives declare the glory of the Lord.
As we ascribe praise and worship to the Lord which is His due, our duty and pleasure, our spirit of gloom, of misery, of depression, of mourning will be lifted. The Holy Spirit who is the Great Comforter will comfort and heal our inner wounds and remove our inner scars. He turns the causes of our sorrow into the sources of our blessing and rejoicing.

Prateep V Philip