Here’s a good word to start our year from opening day of our reading program: Psalm 1 and Genesis 2.

His pleasure and passion is remaining true to the Word of “I Am,”
meditating day and night in the true revelation of light.
He will be standing firm like a flourishing tree
planted by God’s design,
deeply rooted by the brooks of bliss,
bearing fruit in every season of his life.
He is never dry, never fainting,
ever blessed, ever prosperous. (Psalm 1.2, 3, TPT)

The Passion Translation (TPT) entitled this psalm The Tree of Life. The person of the word IS the tree of life. The fruit I bear is not for me, it’s for others. One can’t help but compare Psalm 1 to the first mention of the tree of life:

And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (Genesis 2.8, 9, ESV)

The original tree of life was in the midst of the Garden of Eden. Now, God’s “Trees of Life” are scattered among the world. Scattered to give life to those around us. 

May we all be trees of life. Not focusing on politics, for example, but bringing life and peace, not death and division. I’ve included among my Larry Warner challenged prayers, a prayer that Christians humble themselves, pray, seek God’s face, and repent of OUR wicked ways. (2 Chronicles 7.14) Also, that we choose things that are excellent. (Philippians 1.9 – 11).

I have friends, wonderful Christian people in many ways, but whose Facebook pages, for example, are nothing but conservative political postings. Is this the best way for God’s people to function as trees of life? 

A heard a pastor once contrast living out of the tree of life with living out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, both in Genesis 2. He said that it’s not the knowledge of right and wrong that’s our salvation. It may be that one political party is good and the other evil, but many people wonder which is which! I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow. But knowledge, the way most of us handle it is not life-giving, it’s death-dealing. As the pastor said, “The people that major on the correctness of all their thinking are right…dead. right.”

The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. (John 6.63, ESV)