A Vine or a Tree?
How useful are you to the Lord? That is a question that we all need to ask ourselves. Hopefully we are useful to our family because we are strong enough and wise enough to fulfill our responsibilities. Also, we should be useful to our employer, or we probably won't have a job for very long. It could be that we are even useful to our community in some way, so that we add value to the lives of the people around us. However, the most important thing is to be useful to God. God gave Ezekiel a parable or an analogy to give to the people of Judah. It was to teach them a lesson. (Ezekiel 15:2) "Son of man, how does a grapevine compare to a tree? Is a vine's wood as useful as the wood of a tree?" Of course, God was not talking about the grapes that grow on the vine, just the wood of the vine. It was not strong enough to build with, and when you burned the wood of a vine, it would not burn very long or put out much heart, so it didn't compare well to the wood of a tree. I...