Roots Growing Deeper into Christ

 

When I was enduring one of the most painful ordeals of my life, a friend said, “You know you’re not just going through this for yourself, but you are going to be able to help someone else through it once it’s underneath your feet.” It sounded very inspirational when she said it, but it didn’t really do a whole lot to help me deal with all the stuff I was going through. I couldn’t think about someone else and what they might have to deal with in the future. At the time, it was all I could do to focus on getting through my storm myself. There was no question in my mind that the enemy had nothing on his agenda but tearing me down, and I was having a tough time emotionally, but I must admit that my friend’s comment stayed with me. It planted a seed.

In Matthew 13, Jesus Christ told a parable about a farmer that went out and planted some seeds. In Matthew 13:6(NLT), Jesus said, “But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died.” I read this parable when I was very young in the faith, and the plants without deep roots always bothered me. In my mind, these plants were symbolic of people that were too unstable to remain planted in one place. I have always thought very highly of transparency. I loved being around folks that were grounded and honest. People that tried to represent themselves as being higher than others didn’t rank very high on my list. I couldn’t quite explain it then, but later I realized that I perceived a person that saw themselves as having to be above others as someone that was arrogant and unstable. To me, something was missing at their core.

As I’ve grown into an adult, I’ve learned that there are many more people than I ever thought that will try to attach themselves to a false identity, and I’m more understanding. They have been blinded to the greatness of their true identity in Christ. Those who know God through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, must be eternally grateful. It is only because of God’s grace that we know who we are in Him, and because of this, we can walk with a spiritual confidence the world cannot dismantle.

Jesus Christ made it very clear to us that developing deep roots in him is vital to our lives. He explained in Matthew 13:20-21(NLT), “20 The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. 21 But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word.” This has happened to many people. They were looking for a quick fix and wouldn’t invest the commitment required to learn how to stand in their identity in Christ.

When we experience heartaches and loss, it can knock us to our knees. Often, we will think that God is angry with us and that we are being punished in some way, but God doesn’t punish His children. He does, however, require that His children have deep roots in the Lord Jesus Christ. God tells us in Colossians 2:7(NLT), “Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” God expects us to be committed to the practice of letting our roots grow down into Christ. One of the major reasons for this is because it is the only way that our relationship with God can grow and develop. When our roots grow down into Christ, it means we have consciously and practically taken the steps to make them strong.

To understand this more broadly, think for a moment about the quality relationships we want to have with others. Most of us want something real with other human beings. We don’t want fluff, and we don’t want to waste our time trying to establish something with someone that isn’t in it for the long haul. We’d like to give love to someone that can respond to it, and we should not be surprised that God desires the same. Our blessings are beyond what we could possibly fathom. We can never know all the details of the spiritual realm that must work together to keep us alive for merely one second of each day. If we could see the angelic calibrations and maneuvers as they help us behind the scenes, it would blow our minds. The sun shining each day, the air that allows us to have breath, and coming through life as far as we have, these are huge blessings, but most of us have never offered sufficient gratitude to God for all He’s done for us.

In the parable that Jesus Christ used in Matthew 13:6, he said the plant wilted from the sun’s heat. This describes many of us when we face tribulations and trouble. Instead of burrowing into God even more and seeking His shelter, we try to handle things on our own and we get scorched by the heat of the problem that we’re dealing with. We have our own ideas about what God should do and how He should help us, and when things don’t look to us to be lining up to our satisfaction, we bail on having faith in God. Therefore, we bail on our relationship with Him.

God created relationships, and we learn from human experience that our relationships with each other are not always perfect. The more spiritually mature in Christ that you and I become, the more we learn things like forgiveness, unity, patience, generosity, and compassion. We learn to love through God’s grace, and this is what makes our relationships so sweet. We learn to endure the tough times with one another because we know that this strengthens the unity and intimacy of a relationship. This is true of our relationship with Heavenly Father as well.

Making our roots strong in Christ means that we are reading God’s Word and learning about Him. We can’t get to know someone if we are not interested in finding out who they are. God’s Word tells us who He is. Studying it shows Him that we want to know Him. Ephesians 3:17-18(NLT) says, “17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.” God is not asking us to do the heavy lifting, because we can’t. We can’t make ourselves all that God has destined us to be. His requirement is that we surrender to Him and allow Him to do what only He can.

God teaches us through our problems and tribulations. He doesn’t cause them, but He works through them to help us develop spiritually in Christ. When we see what God does for us through our faith, we are never the same. The more we trust Him, the more we grow in Christ, because we are more convinced of the Father’s unconditional and unlimited love for us. The challenges in life are not easy. They can take a toll on us in many ways, but God desires us to trust in the process of healing, because He wants to restore us. He wants us to become more like Jesus Christ as we learn to lean on Him through our most difficult times. We will be amazed at what God does when we give our pain completely over to Him. We will be stronger than we ever thought possible, and our roots will grow even deeper into Christ. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. 

“Roots Growing Deeper into Christ”,  written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.