…having been deeply rooted (in Him) and now being continually built up in Him and (becoming increasingly more) established in your faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing in it with gratitude.                                  Colossians 2:7

 

I have to say before late last night, when God gave me a picture of what this really means, when I heard someone preach on being rooted, I didn’t think much about it, I actually connected it more with Ephesians 6:13 where we are told “having done everything (that the crisis demands), to stand firm…”.  But wow was I missing the complete picture!!!  We also think about how deep roots will go, through a storm or after years of growth, but this isn’t the picture I was given either.

So, I’m not much of a gardener but bare with me.  When we plant a seed for new growth, we don’t have to dig a very big hole. Maybe you bought a small tomato plant, that takes a bit more of a hole.  But when you buy a tree sapling, or a rose bush, that takes a sizeable hole being dug.  This is the picture God gave me for this verse!  But lets go even further, here in Tennessee the soil is not always easy to dig, you may have some rocky soil or it may be a very dry season & when it gets dry here the soil gets HARD, (yes capital letters were needed there!!).  So now imagine this you not only have rocky soil but you have dry, rocky soil, it is going to take some work to get a hole dug for that tree.  A hole that is deep enough, large enough around to not only stick that tree into but cover that potting soil it came with just a bit.

That is what our Christian life should be like.  See if you just take that tree out of that cheap pot the store had it in and just set it on top of the ground, do you expect it to survive??  The wind could blow it over & kill it.  Their is nothing to hold it stable & that potting soil that is with it will wash away at the slightest rain, it will die.  That is pretty basic knowledge right!?!?  Then, why in the world do we think we can walk this life out without being rooted in the Word????  When God clearly tells us to be rooted.  He doesn’t just mean show up Sunday morning, maybe Wednesday night at your respected place of worship, He means open up your Bible DAILY!!!  Psalm 1:3 tells us to be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water & we will not wither, but look back at verse 2, it says this person firmly planted “delights in the law of the Lord”, in other words he or she delights in God’s Word!  We cannot stand in the storms of life without digging into the Word of God, & I don’t mean while they are happening to us, I mean before the winds ever begin to blow.  When in school you didn’t just hope you would know the answers on the test without ever cracking the book, so why should your Christian walk be any different.  You cannot pass this test we call life without cracking The BOOK!!  If we will spend daily time with God in His Word, we will find when the enemy tries to kick us down with bad medical test results, an unfixable family situation, or thoughts that we are not good enough; then we will kick back because we know who we are in Jesus.  How can you tell the devil he is wrong if you don’t know what God says about your life?

In this day we are “google ready” Christians, “Oh, I have a new problem, I’ll just google where to read in the Bible.”.  But what if when something came at you, you knew from knowledge what the Bible say about your situation?  I can tell you that is so many million times better then trying to  look up the right thing for your situation while you are in the middle, plus you more quickly go to it if you have planted it into your soul already!

I will tell you what else I have learned, the more I read the Word, the more I want to read it, I sometimes can’t seem to get enough.  Start your day off with it.  “Oh, but I’m always in a rush to get to work in the morning, or I struggle getting the kids up & going in the morning.”  Really, what’s an extra 10 minutes, yes I said 10 minutes, promise God a small portion of time of your day to start, don’t try & become an instant giant, too overwhelming!!!  Make a commitment for just a short time, allow God to work in that time, it will grow as you grow.  Just as a tree doesn’t instantly start baring fruit the minute you put it in its hole, you don’t have to instantly be a giant in the faith.  See just like the tree first you make the effort by digging its new hole in your yard, then you water it a little, you don’t want to drown it.  Then after you have watered it some, maybe you get a good rain & it packs the dirt in around it & even though you cant see it, the roots begin to spread out.  Then as time continues to go by the roots go deeper & the tree begins to grow & even eventually give off fruit.  This fruit is sweet to taste, & usually exciting to see, especially by the one who planted it.  Yet another picture of what our life in Christ should be like, sweet with fruit of the Spirit & exciting to see, especially by the One who planted us.  He delights in us, He longs for us to be planted & rooted in Him.  We choose to struggle sometimes, I don’t mean we pick the things that come upon us, those are because we live in a fallen world, I mean we haven’t taken the time to get into God, to get into His Word, to “treasure & store” God’s Word in our hearts (Psalm 119:11).  Why do you think He put that in there my precious friend, because He knew we needed it, He knew that life and the enemy were gonna try & take us down, but if we had His Word hidden in our deepest innermost parts, that we would stay firmly planted in this life.

Then once you have begun this journey you can step back a verse from our key verse today & say you truly do this  “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in (union with) Him (reflecting His character in the things you do and say – living lives that lead others away from sin), having been deeply rooted (in Him) and now being continually built up in Him and (becoming increasingly more) established in your faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing in it with gratitude.        Colossians 2:6-7     When we are rooted in the Word of God, then we can walk in union with Jesus & lead others away from sin.

It’s not too late to start, make a decision today that you will spend time in His Word, that you will become a tree planted by streams of water!

Also the beauty of our technology age is that all you have to do is type a preachers name in & you have a mass amount of sermons at your finger tips (great for car rides, short or long).  This doesn’t replace your one on one time with God in the Word, you still need this, but it can supplement it.

 

Love,

Michelle