The cotoneaster is a garden shrub that I chose in landscaping my new home. I knew nothing except that I liked the one picture I saw of it. I have three. I had no idea how wild they would be without proper knowledge of their upkeep. After eight years of wild and crazy, I finally educated myself, cut them way low and am looking forward to the beautiful plant they were meant to be.
One of the tips given in my research was "Always cut off the growth that shoots straight up. Nothing good ever comes from those branches." As I began to take off these shoots, I began thinking of pride: the pride that exists in a man and the desire he has to rise up above his peers. And taken to the extreme to rise above his Creator, as Satan did, enticing God's crowning creation, man, to do as well. To go beyond what God has prescribed has been the problem of man since the fall. It's called sin.
Pride is defined as a foolishly and irrationally corrupt sense of ones own personal value, status or accomplishments used synonomously with hubris. Hubris, in its ancient Greek context, typically defines behavior that challenge the gods and brings about the downfall of the perpetrator. That about sums up man's predicament. And for those who still have breath, the gospel of Jesus Christ opens a way to save man from the fatal predicament to which he is headed.
Man wants to rise above His creator, to malign God's Word as though it is not relevant for him. The person who will not have God rule over him or who redefines God's Word to suit himself is like that branch that grows straight up. He has lost sight of what he truly is and will be cut off to die, disconnected from all that he could have become. "Nothing good ever comes from those branches."
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