Minister’s Corner: Getting rid of creeping vines

Many years ago I read about a massive oak tree. I can’t remember the source. However, I remember that a vine had grown up along its trunk. This vine started small, but over the years it got taller and taller. After many years, the entire lower half of the tree was covered by the vine’s creepers and threatened the life of the tree. That solid oak tree was literally being taken over. The life was being squeezed out of it. But the gardeners in the park where the tree was planted had seen the danger. They had taken a saw and severed the trunk of the vine. They made one neat cut across the middle of the vine and the vine died. The vine’s branches still clung to the oak, but the vine itself was dead. Finally, the creepers began to die and fall away from the tree.
I’ve said all that to say this: How easy it is for a sin and other seemingly little things, things which begin so small and seemingly insignificant, to grow until they have a strangle hold on our lives. And yet, Christ’s death has cut the power of sin and of anything else that would entangle itself around our lives seeking to choke us out. Let us come humbly before our Lord confessing our sin and let Him rid us of its creeping vines.