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James 1: 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. NIV 

 

Is there anything more important to the passionate follower of Christ than the Word of God? It is known as the “sword of the spirit” (Ephesians 6:17), and a “light to my feet and a lamp to my path” (Psalm 119:105).  It is referred to as “silver refined in the fire seven times” (Psalm 12:6), “living and abiding” (1 Peter 1:23), and Jeremiah describes the Word to be “like fire… and like a hammer” (Jeremiah 23:29). Peter even portrays the Word of God as “spiritual milk” that makes you grow. So it should be no surprise to us that James would add another simile/metaphor to the equation. The King James Version uses the term “engrafted word”, which is important to save you in a morally turbulent world.

 

I learned a lot about grafting while working on my father-in-law’s tree nursery. I am not sure if we are as familiar with grafting in the rolling fields of wheat and canola, however. I grew up in a land of orchards and vineyards where a knowledge of grafting came in handy.

 

As a matter of fact, Dad sold many of the trees and vines to the local farmers. The fruit trees would be sold after two years but they would be propagated through a process called “budding” or “grafting”. Wild seedlings would grow to a height of 30 cm in a field planted 5 cm apart in long rows. At that point, a “budder” would come with a knife and cut a cross-shaped cut at the base of the apple or peach tree. They would then take a bud from a mature branch of a particular variety of tree and slide it into the open cut bark of the wild tree and wrap it with a plastic ribbon. In few weeks, once the graft catches, the ribbon is removed and the tree at the point of the bud (the wild portion) is cut off. My wife, as a young teen, would bud up to 3000 trees in a day as she worked for her father in the summer.

 

Taken in a spiritual context, it is important to have the Word of God grafted in our lives to the point where it catches and grows in us. I have often pondered when I am reading whether it is catching or germinating in my soul and if God is propagating a life that pleases him in a world that threatens to bring me down. I like how The Message version of the Bible illuminates this passage: “So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.”

 

Have a great day!