{"id":5709,"date":"2019-04-21T22:26:05","date_gmt":"2019-04-21T12:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=5709"},"modified":"2019-04-21T23:14:13","modified_gmt":"2019-04-21T13:14:13","slug":"holy-monday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/holy-monday\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy Monday"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Lead me to the Cross<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Holy Monday<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

by<\/em>\u00a0Meray Shehata<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Where are my fruits?<\/p>\n

Think of the fig tree. One of God\u2019s creations planted as a seed as all the other trees were, cared for and given water. Jesus expected great things from this plant as He gave it the perfect environment to thrive and flourish.\u00a0 Now when it came time for Jesus to reap the fruits of the tree and found none, He cursed the plant.<\/p>\n

The lesson for us is that we are not living a life that is our own. Each day, each hour and each second of our lives have been gifted to us. As with the fig tree, which has been granted so much time to bear fruit, each one of our breaths is counted.<\/p>\n

Our God is a merciful, just and kind God. He waits at the door of your heart seeking to enter and provide you with your heart\u2019s desire, He waits to come in and give you salvation. In return, He has one request. Repentance. If the plantation of your heart is fruitless then what good is it then to be cut down?<\/p>\n

Seek the\u00a0<\/em>Lord<\/em>\u00a0while He may be\u00a0found,<\/em>
\nCall upon Him while He is near. <\/em><\/p>\n

Isaiah 55:6<\/p>\n

As we are living on borrowed time, it\u2019s important to remember that everything ends except for the Lord. He is patient and gives us enough time to change and bear fruit. Even more, God is just, He knows the complexity of your character. How comforting is it to know that,\u00a0\u201cThe Lord is not slack concerning\u00a0His\u00a0promise, as some count slackness, but\u00a0is longsuffering toward us,\u00a0not willing that any should perish but\u00a0that all should come to repentance\u201d<\/strong><\/em> (2 Peter 3:9)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the tree from another angle. The fig tree was a beautiful tree. \u201cAnd seeing from afar a fig tree having leave<\/em>s\u201d Jesus being hungry went to inspect it as this wasn\u2019t the season for the fruit. So not only was the tree not meant to have fruit, but it was lavishly displaying its leaves when other trees had nothing to show but bare branches.<\/p>\n

Our lives can also appear abundant. Maybe our leaves portray us as; having the perfect career, an impeccable church servant or a flawless family. Others can be deceived by the extravagant leaves we parade; we may even fall into the trap and see our self falsely. What about God? Will He be deceived by the show we flaunt? Or, will He look deeper to find fruit?<\/p>\n

\u201cExamine yourselves\u00a0as to\u00a0whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves,\u00a0that Jesus Christ is in you?\u2014unless indeed you\u00a0are\u00a0disqualified\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

2 Corinthian 13:5<\/em><\/p>\n

As with the fig tree who bears leaves and no fruit, we cannot become half-hearted Christians. The cursing of the fig tree was symbolic of the cursing of the nominal Christian. The alleged believer who is unrepentant and faithless is undeserving of the kingdom of God. Which is why our actions, thought and feeling should reflect our citizenship in Heaven.<\/p>\n

\u201cEnter by the narrow gate; for wide\u00a0is\u00a0the gate and broad\u00a0is\u00a0the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow\u00a0is\u00a0the gate and\u00a0difficult\u00a0is\u00a0the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Matthew 7: 13-15<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lead me to the Cross Holy Monday by\u00a0Meray Shehata Where are my fruits? Think of the fig tree. One of God\u2019s creations planted as a seed as all the other trees were, cared for and given water. Jesus expected great things from this plant as He gave it the perfect environment to thrive and flourish.\u00a0 … Continue reading “Holy Monday”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[109,110,112,111,28],"class_list":["post-5709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-fruit","tag-holy-week","tag-honest","tag-repent","tag-truth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5710,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5709\/revisions\/5710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}