Manufactured Or Grown?

Manufacturing plants make parts for products and assemble them. Those parts are molded, cut, bolted or hammered together, welded, crimped, shaped by heat or pressure, primered and painted, etc. Sometimes the parts are manufactured in one place and assembled at another. And in the process of mass production, some of these products may fail to work. These may look right on the outside, but nevertheless have something wrong within.

There is another kind of plant; the plant that grows up from the ground. The soil is prepared, the SEED is planted, the area is fertilized and water to encourage the growth; all done with the expectation of a fruitful harvest.

Which of these is a better picture for our life? We may buy products of which we have no idea what is inside, the quality even varying from product to product. However, when we purchase SEEDS to plant in the ground, we know the plant God created to form from within, and with the proper nurturing that simple SEED will grow and produce after its kind.

Is our Christianity merely manufactured (notice how “man” is a part of the word); something slapped together, assembled by man, or simply looks good on the outside while no telling what’s shorting out within? Or is our life growing up from a SEED germinating to provide true life and godly fruit? Someone has said, “Reputation is manufactured; character is grown.” [source: list of “sentence sermons”] We might be known for a label we wear, but what is truly within?

James exhorted his readers…
“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and RECEIVE WITH MEEKNESS THE IMPLANTED WORD, WHICH HIS ABLE TO SAVE YOUR SOULS.” ( James 1:21 ESV)

What is truly going on within us? In order for the imperishable SEED of God’s living and abiding Word ( 1 Peter 1:23) to grow and naturally produce in our life what it was designed to, we must allow it to germinate. It must be cultivated, nurtured, and watered. Effort should be made to keep the weeds (worldliness, sin, etc.) out, as it is carefully and lovingly tended. When this is done that SEED can only produce the godly character God designed it to produce. May that growth continue daily according to God’s design.

Have a great day GROWING IN GODLY CHARACTER!
Carl

See other teEn-MAIL on Character