Rooted and Grounded part 3
I want to link two Bible verses--two concepts--together today. Because I think it's important to understand that in a very real way your roots define you. You can't very well know where you're going until you know where you come from. And listen, I'm not saying we dwell in the past, or let the past define us. I'm saying those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I'm saying, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Provebs 22:6). And I'm linking that up with Mark 10:15, "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Train up a child in the way he should go. Receive the Kingdom as a little child. Remember Jesus said unless we're born again we can't see or enter the Kingdom? I think there's something very important about being child-like. Not childish. Not immature. But simply being totally and completely dependent on Daddy to take care of us. I think we lose that faith--or trust--in God when we start to have faith in ourselves. When we think we can--or when we think we're supposed to--do it ourselves. It's the difference between works and labor (which don't work) and rest. It's the difference between the offering Cain brought the Lord--the fruit of the ground, or what he could produce with his own strength and effort--and the offering Abel brought the Lord--a lamb. It's the difference between self-righteousness, which is no kind of righteousness at all and is likened to filthy rags, and the righteousness of God, which is what we became when Jesus became sin for us. Here, to me, is child-like faith: Daddy says it, so it must be true. Not blind faith, not believing everything and anything, but knowing and believing that Daddy would never harm us. Knowing and believing that Daddy loves us and has our best interests at heart. Being rooted and grounded in love. Baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Immersed in the nature of God in the flesh, love in a body. My favorite song, "How He Loves" has a line that says, "If grace is an ocean we are sinking." Because it's too big. Too good. (Not too good to be true, but so good that it must be true!) God's grace, and mercy, and love surrounds us on all sides and fills us to overflowing. We have faith in God because He has proven (and continues, at every opportunity, to prove) Himself faithful. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. A child receives the Kingdom because He knows it's his Father's good pleasure to give it to Him. That's our foundation. A gift freely given from Father to Son. An inheritance passed down. Not something you can earn, but something you must receive. Everything in life must be built on God's love. That's the beginning, and the end, and everything in between. That's where we come from. That's where we going. And that's where we ARE. We make things so complicated sometimes that we miss out on the simplicity of Christ. We try so hard to "figure things out" that we miss out on the ultimate truth of the universe; The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hand. We go every which way looking for love in all the wrong places. Until we understand that we're connected to the source of love. The God who IS love. Until we remember the things of old. Our roots. Our foundation. And that's what keeps us grounded. Child-like. We love because we are loved. It's that simple.