If a man writes a better book, if he can preach a better sermon, if he can make a better candlestick than anyone else, though he make his home in the woods, the world will beat a trodden path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
This was a fascinating movie about an Irish boy (Billy Eliot), raised and trained by his coal miner father to become a future professional pugilist champion. However, in an unpredictable twist of events, the former has turned out to become a great professional dance artist. This is a must see movie for many parents whose personal agenda for their children have got in the way against the natural talents of their children. Here's a short clip of this superbly done movie entitled Billy Eliot:
Forty years had passed since martial law. This story would never be disclosed if the nation has not regained its freedom from the dictatorial regime. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ has shown His kindness to us Filipinos.
What do we know about roots of
the plants? How it served to make the living plants productive? We all know
that the roots of any plants, both the primary roots and all root hairs served
as the life support of the plant. It absorbed water and other soil nutrients
necessary for plant growth and healthy vegetations in order to produce fruits
that bear seeds in order to perpetuate its existence.
Our study today is about the
analogy between our spiritual life with the biological life of a plant,
particularly the importance of underground roots. Let us look at the first 3
verses in Psalms 1:1-3,
Blessed is the man who does not
walk in the counsel of the ungodly,
or stand in the way of sinners,
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But he delights in the law of
the LORD
And on His law he meditates day
and night;
He is like a tree planted by
the streams of water
Which yields its fruits in
season
And whose leaf does not wither
Whatever he does prosper.
Here we observed that the
Psalmist used the comparison between a life of a man who trusted in God to that
of a tree planted by the streams of water.
Now let us look what our Lord
Jesus told us in the Parable of the Sower found in Matthew 13:5-6, 20-21
“some fell on rocky places,
where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was
shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered
because they had no root.
The one who received the seed
that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once received it
with joy. But since he has no root, he last only a short time. When troubles
and persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
Here we find our Lord Jesus
made emphasis about the importance of the root in relation to living out this
Christian life.
People always noticed the fruit.
Every time we visit the farm, we look up and examine if our fruit trees are
bearing fruits ready for harvest. The roots were always unnoticed.
Brothers and sisters do not
forget to nurture the roots. Apostle Paul told the Colossian believers saying:
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. (Col.2:6-7)
Where do our roots grounded?
There are farm practices
adopted by agricultural companies, it was spelled out in their manual of
operations in order to produce quality fruits conforming to the buyers standard
specifications. If they do not meet the standard, they will lose their market
and caused untold damage to their company’s name and reputation.
Here I am drawing some
similarity with our spiritual growth, there are practices necessary for
nurturing the roots of our faith and these are always private practices. These
are not done in public. These are mostly done in solitude, unnoticed but
unquestionably important.
There are 5 important practices
in the Christian life necessary to deepen our roots of faith:
1.
Growing in the knowledge of His word.
Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the LORD, he
meditates on it day and night…he is like a tree planted by the streams of
water….which yields its fruits in season, whose leaves does not wither.
Do you still regularly spend time each day reading and
studying God’s word? If we want to deepen our roots in our relation with our
Father, we have to grow in the knowledge of His word.
Apostle Paul’s challenge to his son Timothy was this:
“Study to show yourselves approved unto God, a workman who
does not need to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy
2:15)
2.
Keeping the fellowship of the saints (The Body
of Christ, His Church)
The spiritual gifts should be
operational within the Body of Christ in order to mutually edify every
believer. (Romans 12:4-8)
God designed this church as the
embodiment of his divine nature, a forgiven sinners made righteous, a forgiven
sinners ready to extend forgiveness to others.
This is a reality that also
embodies the imperfect Body of Christ. We are a bunch of forgiven sinners,
washed by the precious blood of Jesus, made holy and blameless before God. This
church is still subject to the limitations, to mistakes and failures in the
same way that every believer is also imperfect.
We have to accept such
limitations and just completely rely on the unlimited patience of God, His
unfailing grace over us his children.
3.
Nurturing the roots through fervent prayer.
Jesus said: Pray so that you
will not fall into temptations.
4.
Obeying His call for us.
Jesus said: If you love me, you
will obey my commands. Just as I love the Father and obey His commands. (John
15:10)
5.
Keeping our life testimonies.
“Let your light so shine before
men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in
heaven.”
Most of the time people wanted to see the fruits but they
forgot that unless such tree has strong and well grounded roots, it cannot bear
those sweet tasty fruits.
People have
always gave importance to fruits, they overlook the critical significance of
plant roots.
We hear people make compliments
about the fruit. They use nice words such as sweet smelling ripe mango, juicy,
mouth watering melons. We do not simply hear nice words about those underground,
unseen roots of plants.
Roots are normally unnoticed
many times. It is also true with our spiritual conditions. Our spiritual roots
are usually nurtured during solitude, away from public observations. When we
study God’s word during the dawn and praise and worship God during our personal
devotions, nobody noticed that, unless you make all those practices become a
public knowledge and our Lord Jesus disapproved that.
When we faithfully obey God’s
word, we do not expect praise from men. We do all these private practices not
to showcase our spirituality before men. We do all these in order to deepen our
spiritual roots in God and please Him.
I do not have to tell you the
importance of studying God’s word in order to deepen our spiritual roots. You
have to discover it yourselves. Our Father is longing to hear from us during
our prayers in the closet, and He is more than willing to instruct us and guide
us in order for us to be rooted and grounded in Him always. Our hearts should also become like a soil, ready to receive His nurturing sprinkle of His Spirit so that those roots can truly penetrate and be nourished. Keith Green's song has something to convey about this reality.
Who thought that we
could never be friends? We may have countless rough times together and we
disliked each other so much, but that could not hinder us to become real good friends.
We have come to know each other. We have come to understand that there are two
common causes of our frequent fights. The first one is that we don’t like each
other’s smell. Murphy’s perfume is
always suffocating me. My aromatic
fragrance is always repulsive to Murphy. Then we compromised, I’ll never use my
perfume and he’ll never use his also. The second cause of our fights is that we
both try to please our human masters every day. We both wanted our masters’
attention and so we compete for it. We always tried to outdo each other just to
please our masters. Then one day we realized that we both have the same
purpose, we both have the same goal, to give joy to our human masters, to make
them happy. And so again we compromised and we resolved that we will help each
other in order to achieve our common goal, to please our human masters. And we
understood that this is our great Creator’s intent of making us, to bring joy
and happiness to our Maker’s apple of His eyes, our human masters. We would
like to share our favorite song about friendship, this one sung by James Taylor, entitled You've Got a Friend. Here's the song: