Pastor Jon Allen went to a county fair. He saw a display of odd-shaped fruits and vegetables. He saw a cube-shaped watermelon. He saw a pumpkin that was shaped like a two-gallon jug. The grower of the two-gallon-jug-shaped pumpkin said, “As soon as it started to grow, I stuck it inside a jug. When it stopped growing, I broke the jug, and here it is!”
Don’t walk away from the celebration of the Empty Tomb without a new realization of the freedom and victory of the Resurrection. You are not done growing!
Life has a way of trying to shove you into a two-gallon pumpkin jug. When Paul wrote Romans 12:2, he was saying, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold” (J.B. Phillips). That is exactly what the world is trying to do to you every day. What does your two-gallon pumpkin jug look like? What shaping forces are molding your life?