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It’s pumpkin time again! At this time of year we see lots of those delicious pumpkins, some for eating, some for decorating. But did you ever think of this: Christians are like pumpkins! Now wait, that’s not an insult. Let me explain.
First of all, we’re like pumpkins because:
God picks us from the patch, brings us in, and washes all the dirt off of us.
For those who have been born from above, our salvation began when God picked us out of the patch. Jesus said in John 15:16: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. And Paul reminds us in Ephesians 1:4: For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
I never cease to be amazed at this truth, that God chose me. He picked me out of that dirty pumpkin patch of life and brought me into the fold of his care, made me his child and called me by name.
But you know, a pumpkin is of little use until you get it cleaned up. I don’t know if you’ve ever picked a pumpkin or seen one right out of the pumpkin patch, but they are really dirty. They lie on the ground for many days and collect all kinds of dirt and mud, so when you bring them in, the first thing you have to do is get them cleaned up.
And that’s the first thing God does for us when he chooses us from the dirty patch we were in. We read in 1 Corinthians 6:11: And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
And again in Titus 3:4-5: But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we have done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
We come from different “pumpkin patches,” with different kinds of dirt on us, but all of us had to be cleaned up by Jesus, didn’t we? Think of what you were before Jesus brought you in from the patch. Think of where you would be without him.