Who We Are 
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love.
The Root Determines the Fruit!
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What defines you? Some people define themselves by their natural ancestry. They are often proud (or ashamed) of their family tree. “I’m Irish”, or “I’m Italian” or “I’m African American” or, the list goes on. If you visit any of our major cities here in America, such as New York, Chicago, Boston, or San Francisco, you will no doubt find thriving within them whole communities, rich with the culture, heritage, and language of their ancestors. Their roots run deep.
Roots are important. In plant life, the root is that part that is below the ground, holding the plant in position, and drawing water and nourishment from the soil. In music or in language, the root is the base or platform of construction. Your teeth also have roots, and so does your hair. We don’t usually see them, but aren’t we glad they’re there? The roots keep those things attached. We use the term, rooted, to mean fixed, or established, immovable.
Jesus said, "Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing."(John 15:5-6,NLT) We can do nothing if not attached to the life-giving vine. We do not give life to the root; the root gives life to us.
If you’re rooted you’re not easily moved!
In Ephesians 3, we find a prayer that Paul prayed for us, starting in verse 14: "When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, 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 give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. 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 really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen." (NLT)
May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. Think about it: life flows from the root. So if we’re rooted in the love of God (God IS love), then that love will nourish and strengthen us, filling us with the very nature of God Himself. Look at Colossians 2:6-10: "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority." (NIV)
If we’re rooted in the love of God according to Ephesians 3, we’ll be filled with His fullness. But then we’re admonished in Colossians 2 to make sure no one takes us back into captivity with the traditions of men. You would think that once we’ve tasted of the fullness of God and the freedom that it brings, we would never be tempted to go back to our traditions. But traditions have roots. And roots, if not dealt with, continue to grow underneath the surface causing potential problems down the road.
Look at Numbers 33:50-53,55 (NLT): While they were camped near the Jordan River on the plains of Moab opposite Jericho, the LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and tell them: 'When you cross the Jordan River into the land of Canaan, you must drive out all the people living there. You must destroy all their carved and molten images and demolish all their pagan shrines. Take possession of the land and settle in it, because I have given it to you to occupy. But if you fail to drive out the people who live in the land, those who remain will be like splinters in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land where you live.'"
God told the Israelites that THEY were supposed to get rid of the roots! Once more, He said if THEY didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done, and if left undone, those roots would harass them for the rest of their lives.
We had some holly bushes a few years ago that we wanted to get rid of. They were sort of straggly and just didn’t look good where they were. Since they didn’t look all that healthy anyway, we thought they’d be easy to get out of the ground. Investigating a little further however, we found some pretty strong roots. They were as thick as the trunk of the bush! Sure, we could have just cut the holly bush at the base, but that would just be a temporary solution. The roots would have remained and eventually another bush would develop. How do I know this? Because we also had a fig tree on our property. And though it was kind of cool having a fig tree (being faith preachers- see Mark 11); it was in sort of a peculiar place. We ended up deciding to cut it down. But do you know what? It grew back! You just can’t leave roots where you don’t want something growing. Well, we chopped at the roots of those holly bushes with an axe to no avail; our own strength was no match for such strong roots. If those roots were going to come out, we needed some extra power. Finally, we wrapped a chain around them, hooked up the chain to the hitch of our truck and hauled them out!
Remember what Ephesians 3 said? If we’re rooted and grounded in His love, then we’ll be filled with His power! "By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope." (Eph 3:20) The only way to get rid of those old roots is to hitch up to the power of God on the inside of you!
Look after each other so that none of you will miss out on the special favor of God. Watch out that no bitter root of unbelief rises up among you, for whenever it springs up, many are corrupted by its poison. (Heb 12:15, NLT)
Naturally speaking, there are roots that become so troublesome, they can even ruin underground plumbing. I’ll spare you the gory details, but we just discovered that ugly truth recently concerning our septic tank. About ten years ago, not long after we moved in, we had some issues that we found were related to a tree that had been cut down. The stump was still there and the roots had continued to grow dislodging an underground pipe. We fixed that problem, but recently, ten years later, we discovered another root system had gotten into the pipe itself nearly stopping its operation altogether. They were not large roots, but a large mass of tiny roots. 1 Tim 6:10, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (NASU) Even tiny roots can produce all sorts of havoc.
How can you tell if there are old roots in your life?
Take this test. If just thinking about a bad situation that has passed still brings up some pretty heated emotions, there might be a root. A contractor recently was telling us about a stubborn client. The client had chosen some sub-standard materials and wanted the contractor to install. He advised the client against it, telling them they wouldn’t be happy, but the client insisted, so he installed it. It turned out the way the contractor had predicted and the client refused to pay him. When he was re-telling the story to us, he started to get very emotional and you could tell he was not “over it”. He could tell it, too. He confessed that he was going to have to deal with those feelings. You know the saying, forgive and forget? It’s possible!
Good news! We can do something about those old trees of tradition AND their pesky roots. Jesus came upon an unfruitful fig tree one day (Mark 11). He could have told his disciples to cut it down, but that would have only been a temporary solution. Cutting it down would not have dealt with the source of its unproductive life: the roots. It was time to use some power. So what did Jesus do? He spoke to it! And when He did, He left nothing that would allow it to show its ugly self again! His disciples were amazed when they saw the tree the next day. It had withered from the root!
You might say, "I don’t know if I have that kind of faith." My answer to that is, what other kind is there? Jesus said, "Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22). The literal translation is: "Have the faith of God". Is it presumptuous of us to say that? Not if we understand that because we are rooted in HIM, we are filled with HIS fullness! We can therefore boldly say that we have HIS faith! The root determines the fruit!
But what if you feel you don’t have ENOUGH of that faith? Let’s let Jesus Himself answer that as well. "And the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." So the Lord said, "If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.” (Luke 17:5-7,NKJV) Glory to God!
Plant that mustard seed and let its roots grow deep in the soil of God’s love. Let it draw from the faith nature of God. I’ve read that mustard can grow in just about any kind of soil. It even thrives in the desert. It’s not affected by any other plant around it. Friend, your faith will work, because it comes from the root of our Father God! The root determines the fruit!