What you’re looking at are two ancient presses – one for grapes and one for olives. They both crush the fruit to retrieve their valuable substance. One is grape juice and the other is olive oil. How they are pressed is entirely different though. Grapes were crushed by human feet so as to not crush the grape seed. If this happened it could make the juice bitter. Olives were crushed – seeds and all – using a large stone. Afterwards the paste was put into fiber bags and pressed to remove the oil. Two different methods were used to produce the same result – a useful product.
Jesus didn’t come to add new behaviors or Himself to us. He came to exchange us with Him. One of His methods to accomplish this goal is to allow challenges into our lives in order to press out our worn and useless character (Heb. 12:1-11). He uses these challenges, these life situations, to separate the unusable part of our lives and leave only the valuable substance behind – Himself. The beauty is that He knows just how hard to press and with what instrument to get the job done.
This is why living with a biblical worldview is so important. We must learn to listen to and then do what He says in every situation we face. He uses those daily life situations to do the pressing. Rather than focus on and complain about our challenges He is asking us to trust in and focus on Him during those tough situations. They are simply the instrument He uses to make us more like Him.
Jesus loves us. He went through a horrible pressing in order to make us valuable children of God. We can trust His process to bring sweetness, not bitterness, into our lives.
“S”et Free Nowww