Aging with Grace by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012120/REL023000/REL012110
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2021-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

5

Flourishing and Fruitful

Psalm 92:12–15

Susan

Flourishing and fruitfulness are delightful themes of Scripture. God commanded the earth to sprout vegetation. The living creatures were commanded to “be fruitful and multiply” (see Gen. 1:11–25). The man and woman were given a cultural mandate to be fruitful and multiply and to have dominion over the creation. They were to live face-to-face with God and extend his glory to all the earth, foreshadowing the gospel mandate to go into all the world and be fruitful and multiply spiritually as we make disciples (Matt. 28:18–20). And in the new Jerusalem there will be the “tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month” (Rev. 22:2).

When I was young, if someone had asked me what words came to mind when I thought about aging, I suspect I would have said declining, unproductive, dependent, inactive. I wonder if God’s declaration that his righteous ones will flourish, grow, and be fruitful in old age is on the short list of the most unexpected surprises in Scripture.

Psalm 92:12–15

12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;

they flourish in the courts of our God.

14 They still bear fruit in old age;

they are ever full of sap and green,

15 to declare that the Lord is upright;

he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

These verses answer the following questions:

Who does the Bible say will flourish and be fruitful?

What does the Bible mean by flourishing and fruitful?

Where is the place we learn to flourish and be fruitful?

Who Will Flourish and Be Fruitful?

The “righteous” refers to the status of God’s chosen children whom he declares righteous by crediting the perfect righteousness of Christ to their account. They are the justified ones. The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains:

Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.1

The purpose of this book is not to share clever strategies that will equip you to become a better, older version of yourself. Instead, it’s about what God is committed to do in the lives of his justified ones—women just like you. It’s about the reversals he accomplishes by his grace.

And all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord; I bring low the high tree, and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree, and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it. (Ezek. 17:24)

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