Grafted On
Most of us don’t grow olive trees so the concept of grafting on is vague at best. But it is an age old practice and one that bears depth and meaning as the analogy used in Romans 11.
According to Olive Oil News, “Grafting is done for several purposes, but most commonly in the olive oil industry it is to get the hardy roots of one variety with the fecundity of another variety. The whole point of grafting is that each part of the grafted tree keeps its original character. The variety used for the root stock may be resistant to fungus or other pests but has a small or low yield olive. The graft may have weak roots but large fruit with high oil content. The resulting tree has the best of both varieties.”
Fecundity is a great word. According to vocabulary.com “Fecundity means fruitfulness and fertility, the ability to produce abundant healthy growth or offspring“.
God created Adam in His own image, grafting him on to His holiness. God adopted Abraham as a child of Adam but as the father of a new people, in covenant, grafting His lineage on to God’s own stock. And now, even today, “For God so Loves the World” He will graft on even the wildest of plants, who are willing to yield to His pruning and taming, for the fecundity of fruitfulness.
The expectation is fruit. We are not being grafted on to good stock simply so we can be nourished, but so that, by being nourished we produce abundant healthy growth.
Is your life producing fruit? Are you actively witnessing to others, in your words and in your actions? Who have you invited to a bible study, to BSF?
If you are not producing fruit, you are a broken branch. But here is the most important and critical part to remember: The fruit always comes from the root. You are not producing fruit – God is producing fruit through Adam, through Abraham, through you. If you are a broken branch, it is not because God has stopped sending energy and fruit out to you – it is because you have broken yourself off from the root.
The amazing thing is that God is willing to pick up even the weakest and driest of withered broken branches and graft us back on, all we have to do is believe (actually, we don’t even have to do all of that, we just have to open the door and He will fill us with the Spirit of belief.)
My Answers:
8.
They are still called to faith in Jesus – they have not been rejected, God has not forgotten His covenant. He has kept a remnant. He has not abandoned them, the Gentiles have been grafted on to the root of the covenant He made
9.
a.
The root is God, holy in His covenant to Abraham. The broken branches are the children of Abraham who have rejected God. The wild shoot grafted on are the believing gentiles
b.
He will take any branch and graft it in at any time (despite how many times it has fallen away) All we have to do is believe
10.
He has saved me. He has challenged me. He has given me His word so that I can find some element of peace and hope.
The Notes are Good 