Rooted

Rooted

Now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 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.

“MY BASIL IS DAMPING OFF!” I wailed to no one in particular as I turned to examine my tray of heirloom tomato seedlings, hoping to avoid having to start over with planting because of this nasty pathogen.

I’d become something of a reluctant expert when it comes to damping-off and knew that fungi were the problem. Spores attack newly emerged seedlings, rotting the stem at the soil line. Established seedlings with strong roots and thicker stems are not nearly as susceptible, so I wage my battle against damping-off in the few weeks of my seedlings’ lives, but not beyond.

There are so many farming metaphors in Scripture, and the command to “let your roots grow down” (Colossians 2:6) reverberates through my soul in this season of emerging seedlings and new growth. Sprouting seedlings are not much different from those of us with new faith—tender and weak.

Unrooted faith is vulnerable to attack by our enemy, the devil. He is real, and he is treacherous. The longer we linger with a surface-dwelling faith, the more susceptible we are to his whispered doubts, unable to push back against his flawed but convincing arguments because we don’t have the foundation and understanding to do so. It’s only as we put down roots that are deep and wide in our knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is (and is not) and who he calls us to be (or does not), that we can recognize and push back on our greatest enemy’s tricks and traps. Committing our hearts to Jesus is not the end. It is the beginning of an amazing new adventure—one that requires a firm, strongly rooted foundation built on knowing Jesus.

Lord, no matter how long it has been since we first gave our hearts to you, help us to grow deeper, healthier roots—whether that’s in our digging up wrong or twisted theology and replacing it with truth or in your revealing new knowledge and truth to us. Amen.

-Julie

One Good Step: Buy a study Bible or a Bible commentary so you can dig deeper into the cultural context and history of the Scriptures you are reading. I recommend the NLT Study Bible.