The Engrafted Word

💔 Every gardener knows the heartbreak of "failure to thrive." You have a specific variety of tomato you are desperate to grow—perhaps a delicate heirloom with a flavor you can’t buy in stores. You plant it with high hopes, but it is vulnerable. It lacks the constitution to fight off the nematodes in the soil or the blight in the air. 😭Despite your best efforts, it wilts, struggles, and eventually succumbs to disease.

In the natural world, we have a brilliant solution for this: Grafting. 🙌

We can take a cutting of that delicate, vulnerable tomato variety (the scion) and graft it onto the rootstock of a different variety—one that is naturally vigorous, pest-resistant, and disease-proof. When the two heal together, the life of the strong rootstock flows into the weak branch. Suddenly, that tomato plant which could never survive on its own begins to thrive. It doesn't just survive; it produces fruit in abundance.

This is a perfect picture of how Rhema—the living, spoken Word of God—works in our lives.

The Power of the Rootstock

📖The Bible speaks of the "engrafted word, which is able to save your souls" (James 1:21). Just as the resistant rootstock changes the destiny of the tomato plant, the Word of God changes ours when it is grafted into our spirits.

We often try to live life in "man’s way." We strive, we stress, and we try to produce fruit through our own willpower. But like that delicate heirloom tomato trying to fight off pests alone, we find ourselves vulnerable. We get exhausted. We face "diseases" of the spirit—fear, doubt, and anxiety—that wither our potential.

Just like my Pastor said during last night’s service,"Man’s way" doesn’t get God’s results. But when we allow the Rhema Word—the specific, living word God speaks to our hearts—to be engrafted into us, we tap into a source of life that is resistant to the pests of this world.

Rhema: The Living Connection

Learning gardening strategies is similar to how we approach scripture. We don’t just read a gardening manual to memorize facts; we read it to apply it to the soil. Similarly, the Word isn't meant to stay on the page.

"The word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it." (Deuteronomy 30:14)

🪔When you face a situation where you need a breakthrough, you seek the solution in the Word. The Bible says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105). Just as you research how to stop a pest in your garden, you search the scriptures for the answer to your life's problem.

But it goes deeper than information. When that Word becomes Rhema—when the Holy Spirit breathes on it and it becomes a personal revelation to you—it is no longer just text. It is a living substance. It is planted in you. It becomes part of your spiritual DNA.

Nothing is Impossible

In the garden, when you graft a tomato, you are essentially doing something that looks impossible to nature: you are making a weak plant strong by borrowing the life of another.

God operates in the realm of the impossible. "For with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37).

When you have the engrafted Word, you are no longer limited by your own natural resistance or ability. You are drawing from the rootstock of Heaven. Your desires, your hunger to learn, and your ability to grow—"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17). Even the desire to grow that tomato, or the desire to grow closer to God, comes from Him.

More Than You Imagined

🤩Here is the most beautiful part of the grafting metaphor. When you graft a tomato, it is possible to have the rootstock support multiple varieties. You can have the original resilient variety and the grafted heirloom growing on the very same plant at the same time.

It is a picture of multiplication and abundance.

God doesn't just want to fix your problem; He wants to blow your mind. He wants to produce a harvest that is diverse and abundant. As Paul wrote in Ephesians:

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." (Ephesians 3:20)

That "power that worketh in us" is the engrafted Word. It is the resistant rootstock. When you stop trying to grow in your own strength and let His Word become part of who you are, you will find yourself bearing fruit you never thought possible. You will become resistant to the pests that once destroyed you, and you will see a harvest that is truly more than you could ask or imagine.

My encouragement to you today is to take a moment to reflect on God’s MAJESTY and a reminder to get in the Word of God DAILY, because it CHANGES us!

Love Always,

A Grateful Gardener