Live in Christ and Rooted In Him!

Live In Christ and Be Rooted In Him!

Colossians 2:6-7 "As therefore you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so live in him,  rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

When I read this verse I really liked the message.  I love thinking about being rooted in Christ.  When I hear those words I think of trees and how intertwined their roots are.  The roots soak up the water to feed the tree.  Think about all the trees in the world and how well they are surviving.  Imagine if they were rooted in Christ.  Imagine if they had the access to the life giving water that we have access too.  

I don’t think we think about roots very much.  I don’t know if we truly understand how important it is to have a firm foundation.  If a tree doesn’t have good roots it will not be able to withstand a storm and there will always be storms.  It doesn’t matter if you are a tree, a mountain, an animal, a person, there will always be storms throughout life.  I wonder if we understand how important it is to try and develop those roots before the storms come?  While we are going through a hard time, we usually decide we need to figure out some way to get thought it.  This is often when we will turn to God, turn to scripture, or turn to church.  

What if we were to do this before we hit the hard time.  What if we were to prepare in advance for it.  When you are in the middle of a crisis, it is too late to prepare.  You are in survival mode.  I think society as a whole underestimates the need for roots, for a firm foundation.  This verse tells us to live in Him, just as you were taught.  But, what if you weren’t taught?  What if no one ever explained to you how important it was to read the Bible?  Or, what if they told you how important it was, but they didn’t explain why it was important?  Do you know why it is important to read the Bible?  That is not a rhetorical question.  If someone was to ask you why you should read the Bible, would you have an answer to give?  I feel like a few years ago I definitely wouldn’t have had one.  I don’t even know if I have one now that would fully explain how important it is and yet I am going to try to give you a reason because I think it is important for us all to be able to verbalize to others why reading the Bible and being “in” God’s Word is so important.  

One reason it is important to read the Bible is so we can get to know God better.  God desires an intimate relationship with each one of us.  How can we have an intimate relationship with Him if we know nothing about Him?  Have you ever had a one sided relationship before.  You know everything about that person and they know nothing about you?  It wasn’t a good relationship, was it?  Reading the Bible can help make the relationship a two way street.  

Another reason we should read the Bible is because the Bible has instructions for everything you might be going through.  It is an instruction guide for life.  Often we turn to the world for solutions to our problems.  We read books and we ask our friends.  How often to we turn to the Bible?  How often do we sit down and ask God what we should do?  The important thing to remember is not only to ask God, but to stop and sit in silence and listen to what God says to do.  The other day I heard a story of a woman who walked in while her son was on the computer.  She saw that he was looking at pornography.  She was so upset and told him to go to bed and they would talk about it in the next day.  She didn’t know how to handle it and didn’t want to say something she would regret.  She decided to turn to God and ask for wisdom on what to do in this circumstance.  

Did you know God will give you wisdom of what to do in a circumstance if you give Him a chance?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all pause when we are upset and consult God before we say anything.  Imagine how much nicer our words would be even if we just paused and said a quick prayer to God to guide your words before saying something.  When this woman was praying she felt God gave her the answer to her problem.  She had her son write a story for the woman on the screen.  What was her childhood like, what was her teen years like, what happened in her life that made her feel like she had to make a living in pornography.  He did this and he never wanted to look at pornography again.  If she would have just went with her first instinct she probably would have punished him and he would have gotten angry but probably wound’t have learned any lesson from it.  

Did you know there is something called the Bible Concordance?  A concordance contains an alphabetical index of words used in the Bible and the main Bible references where the word occurs. A Bible concordance is useful in locating passages in the Bible. If you can remember just one word in a verse, you can often find what you’re looking for.  If you are struggling with an issue, you can look key words up in the concordance.  If you can’t find the words you are looking for in the Concordance, you can also type your question into a search bar on the internet.  For instance, “Bible verses about parenting.”  It is likely that others have struggled with a similar thing and they have done all the leg work to find the bible verse for you.  

I was going to write a third reason it is important to read the Bible and nothing was coming to me, so I decided I would search the internet to see if there was an article about this topic.  There were so many.  I urge you if you aren’t convinced that reading the Bible daily is a necessity, do a search on the internet of why it is important and you will be convinced.  A third reason came to me as I was searching through the various articles.  Reading the Bible feeds your soul.  It offers you encouragement and strength.  As you go through the Bible you notice certain verses stand out to you.  These verses are great ones to write down and turn to in your time of need.  If they stood out to you, there is a reason why.  God knows you will need that verse at some point, or there is something He is wanting to teach you from that verse.  God speaks to us in so many ways and sometimes it is through scripture.  

The verse above ends by saying, “Abounding in Thanksgiving.”  This is so important and yet not always easy to do.  When times are good we sometimes forget to be grateful because we are just enjoying the good times, especially if things have been good for awhile.  Then when things are bad we don’t usually think we have any reasons to be grateful.  I believe God wants us to be grateful in the good times and the bad times.  I truly believe that there is always something you can be grateful for.  Sometimes it may be big things and sometimes it may be small things.  Sometimes I am grateful for huge answers to prayers.  Other-times, I am just grateful for my cup of tea, or that the sun is shining.  What if we all make it a goal to be “abounding in Thanksgiving” for this upcoming year?  Or if that is too much of a stretch from where you are right now, what if we just started with making a goal of finding one thing to be grateful each day?  What if you made a commitment to write down one new thing you are grateful for each day.  At the end of 2023 you will have a list of 365 reasons you had throughout the year to be grateful.  Wouldn’t that be something amazing to review at the end of 2023?  

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today.  Lord, please show each one of us why it is important for us to ground ourselves in your Word.  Please put on our hearts a desire to read the Bible daily.  Help us to turn to you and to turn to the Bible in our times of need instead of turning to the world.  Lord you are so amazing and we are sorry we don’t listen more to what you have to say.  We are sorry we ask everyone else for advice, but we don’t ask you.  Or, if we do ask, we don’t listen to what you say.  We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow.  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day!

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