Hosea 14:8
"..... I am like a green fir tree, from Me is your fruit found.'
God is the source of all our blessings and benefits. We are to turn to no other entity in prayer for communion with wood/crystals/metals/nature cannot answer our prayers, cannot speak with us.
God created the universe and everything in it but the universe cannot communicate with us either. Only in God can we find everything our heart desires for He is our desire.
When we grasp hold of His outreached hand and cling to Him, He will take us with Him wherever He goes.
But why does He compare Himself to a green fir tree? The fir/juniper/cypress tree is home to birds, who nest in their branches or use their needles for nest building. It's shadow spreads across the land and covers all who live under it, not just draw near for shelter from the heat of the day.
Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
Both Israel and the Church are God's extension of Himself to a lost and dying people who need saving, saving on God's terms. We are not here to judge each other's sins, nor to condemn each other for sin. John 3:17
For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
As representatives of Christ we are to be like Christ. God is Judge, we are not. We are the body of Christ: His hands, His feet, His eyes, His heart, etc. With our hands we hold, with our arms we cradle or embrace, with our legs we stand and lift, with our eyes we see what He sees, with our heart we love with His love.
John 13:34
A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.
Only then will our families, our friends, our strangers and our enemies know that there is, indeed, a God who loves them. We are not to hate each other, for in hate there is no love; therefore the love of God cannot be extended to another when it is not in us in the first place.
1 John 4:20
If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
We cannot love each other properly unless we have the Holy Spirit, for it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that our love is truly an extension of God's love and mercy towards all of us. Think of Him as being the sap in the fir tree. God is the Gardener: He not only created the Tree, He planted it. Christ is the Trunk. We are the branches.
