There are so many reasons why I love Gardening! It’s exciting because you grow as you learn something new. Gardening is exciting because you explore new veggies and fruit while facing new challenges like soil conditions, weeds, disease and insect invasion. The best part about gardening is doing it with my children as they learn right beside me. I especially love it when they make new discoveries of their own. They love playing in the dirt with homemade garden tools or daddies tools from his toolbox. We grow tomatoes every year but needed more to make spaghetti sauces. We heard about how you need to prune your tomato plants by removing the sucker branches, so they would produce the maximum harvest.
We started researching the best method to prune the tomato plants. Also, what is a sucker branch? Who knew you needed to prune tomatoes like a fruit tree? We were overwhelmed with the flood of information out there about the subject of pruning. We wanted to learn about it now and not a year later! It amazes me how easy it is for us to learn about something new! The world is full of information right at our fingertips! So, I said to my kids, we are on a mission looking for the best way to prune a tomato plant! I also mentioned we need to find out what a sucker branch is?” Before I finished my sentence, I heard, “Hey Siri. “ what is a sucker branch?” Guess what happened next? Siri answered! Our kids can ask their devices anything! It seems so easy and I wonder what this could look like in the future. Would they accept the answers and trust their apps like google to get them information? However, talking to Siri makes me question the source Siri get it’s answers.
It is awesome and easy to find information but also not so awesome because the search can mislead people or keep them from digging to learn more! I know the subject is about looking up information about caring for your tomato plant, but wondered if people might start depending on Siri to ask about God! You can know what the Bible says, but it’s the Holy Spirit that reveals the hidden things of God that He freely give to those who believe. We cannot get answers about Jesus from a machine! Only through the Spirit of God that we can understand the things about God! 1 Corinthians 2:6-16 (NIV) This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. 15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” We are to follow the Holy Spirit as He guides us into understanding through the living words of God.
Romans 12:2 (NIV) “Do not conform to the pattern of this world,” The patterns of the world would be to look for answers about God through human understanding. Instead, seek God through Scripture by sharing what you read and listen to your sisters and brothers in Christ. My favorite is listen to church and sharing notes! God speaks to us in relationship with one another and this is how we become strong in Jesus. It’s through Scripture we will be transformed by renewing of our mind because God’s words are alive and active (Hebrews 4:12)! Romans 12:2, continues saying, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is his good, pleasing and perfect will.” We cannot depend on the information from the world because it changes constantly through the ages. But, we can depend on God who is always the same and never changes. Scripture is our spiritual filter as it strains out lies from the world while the solid truth remains! 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 (NIV) “Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness” 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.” 21 So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future all are yours, 23 and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God.
This also made me think about our younger generation, and how they would be affected, spirituality, if they depended on apps or Siri to ask questions about who Jesus is and the Bible! Also, asking their devices instead of each other. All of us like quick ways to do things but our relationships will suffer if we skip steps! Most of all, our relationship with Jesus. John 15:14-15 (NIV) “You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus is our friend! We aren’t meant to do life alone! We need to stay connected in All seasons. Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches! We need God to help us as we stay United In the body of Christ, the church, to keep us on the straight and narrow path! Matthew 7:13-14, (NIV) “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
The information from the internet is useful when looking up how to prune your tomato plant or find out what is a sucker branch. It could be so very useful and save us so much time for many different things. However, We just need to be careful about depending on the internet by looking for questions about God or the Bible! Some information out there is false and will lead you astray. It could stunt your growth or even worse it could mislead people into believing a lie! This is why we need to read the Bible and ask questions. We need to keep our lamps full and keep watch because you don’t know the day or the hour (Matthew 25:1-13). Even the Elect could be deceived! Matthew 24:24, “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25See, I have told you ahead of time.” A half truth is still a solid lie! So we need to stay in God’s word by not looking to the left or the right fixing your eyes on Him! God shows himself everywhere and in everything. We will not be snatched out of God’s hands! John 10:27-30 (NIV) “ 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.”
6“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
7“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
9“ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
13“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
9“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,13but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
15“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— 16then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 17Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. 18Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. 19How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 20Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. 21For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
22“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. 23At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.24For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25See, I have told you ahead of time.
26“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. 27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
29“Immediately after the distress of those days
“ ‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’ b
30“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth c will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. d 31And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
32“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.33Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it e is near, right at the door. 34Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.35Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
