Anything Restricting You?

    We have vine trouble at our house. The previous owners planted some kind of flowering vine along the fence, and it is pretty during its blooming season. But I hate it. It sends out creepers everywhere and gets itself into everything. We’ve been working the last couple of years to keep it at bay, but it seems like where we pull one section out, a creeper moves over from a nearby area and a week later fills in what we cleared out. It chokes off many of our other plants and even killed one of our favorite shrubs. When we let our little dogs out, I make sure they keep moving for fear of the vine snagging one of them!
    The shrub we lost is more like a small tree. We had two of them––one on each front corner of our side yard. The vine entangled itself in and around both and last summer, I went out and cut out as much of it as I could. As predicted, two weeks later, it was back in full force. Not long after, we noticed the one tree began to wilt. Though I again cut out the vine, the shrub never came back and soon after died. I began looking for the source of the vine on the other side to save that shrub and was finally able to unearth the stem that grew from it’s main root. All I did was clip that stem. A week later, the vine was obviously lifeless, though its remaining dry tentacles were still wrapped among the shrub’s branches. But it’s negative impact was gone. The vine was dead (there anyway) because it had been severed from it’s root.
    Now we have a living shrub on one corner and a dead shrub on another. I tried to save both by cutting out the vine, but only the side where I got to the root, was the shrub able to be saved.
    As we were winterizing the yard last fall, I thought about the vine as sin (mainly because I hate them both). Both are initially attractive and both have a tendency to get into everything and suck the life out of that which is good. I looked at the dead little tree and the living little tree. Both still had the dried leaves and stems from the vines that had attacked them, but only one was still alive. And then I thought of sin’s affect on people I know and love. Some have been destroyed by their sin. Sin that they initially invited in, and though they had made multiple attempts at getting it under control, it ultimately had its way, ending in the destruction of their marriages, or careers, and even their lives.
    And then there are those of us who still have some of the reminders of the effects of sin hanging around our branches, but the deadly threat had been eliminated when the source was cut by God’s deliverance. In some ways, the dry, lifeless after affects can serve as reminders of the second chance God has given us through salvation in Christ. In our yard, we cleaned out the old vine to make the bush look better and to grow unrestricted. And once you experience God’s deliverance from sin, He’ll help you clean out the old dead and unsightly appendages that get in the way of healthy growth. But even before that process is complete (not sure it ever really is), you’ll know you’ve been delivered from sin’s threat.
    Is that what is weighing you down? Or is the root of sin still attached to its source? Have you come to God to be delivered or are you still progressively being choked off by the growing tentacles of sin. We only have so much time, and as this vine grows, it’s threat accelerates. There is so much at stake. Let Jesus cut the root and enjoy his forgiveness and salvation! Do it now before you become like the second shrub, destroyed by the strangulation of sin.
    God loves you! He’s not trying to restrict your life. Sin restricts; Jesus liberates! He’s offering to deliver you, forgive you, eliminate your guilt, provide healing and purpose. Turn to him as your Master and Savior and seize the life you were created to live!