It is the middle of the summer. Every garden that is producing fruit, every flower that is blooming, every tree that is giving shade, is growing and producing by its roots. No roots, not fruits. What we see and enjoy on the surface is produced by what lies deep below the surface.
The same is true of our spiritual life. We want the fruits of a Christian life; forgiveness of our sins, a faith to live by, and fellowship with one another. The roots that produce these fruits are the cross of Christ, the apostles’ doctrines, and the church Jesus established. Solomon said it correctly that “the root of the righteous bears fruit” (Pro. 12:12). No fruit without roots.
Jesus’ parable of the Sower taught that those who “believe for a while” and then fall away, are those who “have no firm root” (Lu. 8:13). Paul explained it this way, “if the root is holy, the branches are too” (Ro. 11:16). Too many today want the fruit of forgiveness without the root of the cross, a saving faith without deep roots into the apostles’ doctrine, and the fellowship with God without the foundation of the church. Jude warned of “Autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted” (Jude 12). As in the natural world, so in the spiritual world, there can be no fruit without roots. How deep are your roots?
-Dennis Doughty
