August 19, 2012
When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 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. 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. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. -- Ephesians 3: 14-19 (NLT)
Today we continue our journey into the love of God and how it contains the key to His power in our lives. In the first two portions, we covered who God is to us -- that He is our Father as well as the Creator of everything. Yesterday we examined the process, which is God empowering us with inner strength through Holy Spirit living within us. Continuing in the key verses today we see Paul state that our roots will grow down into God's love to keep us strong. Let us take this apart to see what God is saying to us today. First of all we need to be growing roots as believers. The dictionary defines roots as:
"A part of the body of a plant that develops and grows downward into the soil, anchoring the plant and absorbing nutriment and moisture."
This is crucial for how we see ourselves in Christ. The reality is that the root of an organism is what stabilizes it, anchors it, sustains it, and grows it. So the question for us today is what is our Christianity rooted in? What is our faith rooted in? Upon what are we basing our stability? What is it that provides us with anchoring? Where are we drawing our sustenance from? Is what we are feeding on helping us grow? Because look at what the key verse says we are supposed to be rooted in -- God's love. Is understanding the wrath of God important? Absolutely but it should not be what we are rooted in! Is understanding sin and our flesh nature important? Absolutely but it should not be what we are rooted in! Is understanding the principle of sowing and reaping important? Absolutely but it should not be what we are rooted in! The problem I am afraid is that we have too many Christians with rotten roots! So many of us walk in condemnation because that is what we are rooted in! That is what the church feeds us. The result is that our stability is based upon living up to a standard that we cannot possibly live up to! The mercy and grace of God is completely unmerited. We did not deserve the gift of salvation that He has given us so we need to stop trying so hard to earn what we have already been given! Our stability is then an illusion because every time we fail; we fall.
Likewise, our anchor then does nothing to give us assurance. An anchor is supposed to grant an assurance of being unable to be moved; no matter how rough the waters might get. A certain level of confidence, based upon something you cannot even see once you cast it into the ocean. That is what the love of God is supposed to be for us. We cannot see it but we place all of our faith in it because we know it is there. It grants us an unshakable confidence -- not in ourselves but in whom we have believed! If we have our anchor in anything but the love of God it will be tenuous at best. If we are anchored by the law we know we will fail at it every day. If we are anchored by works, we will never feel secure that our works are enough because they never will be. But inside the love of God -- we can have the utmost security because God never changes beloved.
Even more importantly -- our roots provide us with the sustenance we need to grow as Christians. It is what we feed from. What is feeding us today beloved? I look at barbed wire Christians and I think they are simply being fed from the law instead of the love God shared by sending His Son to deliver us from the law! I look at works based Christians and think they are being fed from some form of religiosity they must have grown up on. This is the beginning of the power we can walk in through the love of Almighty God! As the key verses state it is being rooted in His love that actually keeps us strong. Whenever we find ourselves rooted in something else we are inherently in a weakened position. If everything is judgment we are weakened because we never get to walk free. If everything is works we never feel good enough. These are weaker positions than understanding the love of God for us. When you are rooted in the love of God you have more clarity about who you are because you finally understand who He is!
He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. -- Colossians 2: 14-15 (NLT)
Do we truly get this today? Whatever it is that is haunting you from your past -- God loved you so much He took it away and nailed it to the cross! Whatever that guilt or shame is -- He loved you so much He took it away and nailed it to the cross! Whatever has happened even since you were saved -- including what you did last week that is following you around -- God loved you so much He took it away and nailed it to the cross! Whatever mistake you make tomorrow -- God loved you so much He has already taken it away and nailed it to the cross! There is now no condemnation! Whatever it is that is feeding your guilt, shame and reproach -- you need to shut it off, pull up your roots and plant yourself firmly within the love that God has already shown for you -- by dying for you. Hallelujah!
We will continue tomorrow...
Rev. Anthony
