Rooted in Truth!

Ever since we moved into our home 16 years ago in the mountainous terrain of Georgia, I can’t help but reflect on the lessons the Lord teaches me/us through our annual home improvement process (painting, landscaping, gardening, room décor, etc.). 
 

And when I tell you we live within the hilly terrain of Georgia, I mean literally. Our subdivision and every other subdivision’s around are carved out of a mountain or hill. Our area of metro Atlanta can at times to be one large mountain after another, between Kennesaw Mountain and Red Top Mountain- and believe me they are beautiful. 

When we first moved into our home in the 90’s, our backyard consisted of mainly a rock surface with huge trees with roots (large and small) everywhere.  These trees and their roots presented a problem when it came to planting new grass or flowers. 

Several weeks into being in the home, while pulling weeds and planting plants, I noticed how one of the prettiest trees in the back yard began to turn white. I called my husband who actually is better at gardening than me, who announced that this particular tree’s roots were not deep enough to draw the nutrients needed because of our rocky terrain of our ground in our backyard. Consequently, because of the lack depths of its roots needed to live, it probably would die. 

So there it was!  What a sight. The prettiest and biggest tree in our yard was dying because the rocky foundation underneath the soil in our yard would not allow the trees roots to grow deep enough to get the nutrients it needed to live! 

Now let me describe something to you.  Trees and plants are very resilient things. So if you are able to change the environment, or replant it during a earlier stage of life or in a healthier soil, it might live.

So simply watering the tree in a place that was not healthy for it although the sun was hitting all of it’s branches and leaves- was not good enough!

Likewise, an unhealthy foundation is very deceptive- though things may grow in its environment, we can’t assume it is healthy from appearance alone.  Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
 

The hardness of Sin may go unnoticed by the richness of it's topsoil, however if it is not dealt with early on, by the time you turn your head the repercussion of death will have found its way up your tree and into your heart. 

Sin begins to spread and spread, and spread all throughout your senses and can even cause you to lose all sensibility. At first glance, it's almost as if the tree’s size can be misleading. Though great in beauty, though one of God’s beautiful creations- if not tended to in the correct manner- will only be beautiful on the outside, but decayed and dying on the inside. It will become just a shell of a tree!  And the deception of it is deadly.

   James 1:^{12 (AMP)} Blessed (happy, to be envied) is the man who is patient under trial and stands up under temptation, for when he has stood the test and been approved, he will receive [the victor's] crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him. ¹³Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted from God; for God is incapable of being tempted by [what is] evil and He Himself tempts no one. ¹⁴But every person is tempted when he is drawn away, enticed and baited by his own evil desire (lust, passions). ¹⁵Then the evil desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully matured, brings forth death.

 ¹⁶Do not be misled, my beloved brethren. ¹⁷Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].

Though temptation is something that will always be around us, God is looking for those who will not easily or readily yield to it!  Remember the next time you come across a foreign thing in your life, before you plant your roots make sure it’s the True Vine and not a place of shallow dwelling that will eventually starve you of your blessing!

John 15:5-(AMP)
I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing.