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Rooted In Christ, April 27
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon.
Psalm 92:12
.
The Christian is likened to the cedar of Lebanon. I have read that this tree
does more than send down a few short roots into the yielding loam. It sends strong
roots deep down into the earth, and strikes down farther and still farther in search
of a still stronger hold. And in the fierce blast of the tempest, it stands firm, held
by its network of cables beneath.
So the Christian strikes root deep into Christ. He has faith in his Redeemer.
He knows in whom he believes. He is fully persuaded that Jesus is the Son of
God and the Saviour of sinners.... The roots of faith strike deep down. Genuine
Christians, like the cedar of Lebanon, do not grow in the soft surface soil, but are
rooted in God, riveted in the clefts of the mountain rocks.
If the Christian thrives and progresses at all, he must do so amid strangers
to God, amid scoffing, subject to ridicule. He must stand upright like the palm
tree in the desert. The sky may be as brass, the desert sand may beat about the
palm tree’s roots, and pile itself in heaps about its trunk. Yet the tree lives as an
evergreen, fresh and vigorous amid the burning desert sands. Remove the sand till
you reach the rootlets of the palm tree, and you discover the secret of its life; it
strikes down deep beneath the surface, to the secret waters hidden in the earth.
As the palm tree, drawing nourishment from fountains of living water, is green
and flourishing in the midst of the desert, so the Christian may draw rich supplies
of grace from the fountain of God’s love, and may guide weary souls, that are full
of unrest and ready to perish in the desert of sin, to those waters of which they
may drink, and live. The Christian is ever pointing his fellow men to Jesus, who
invites, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”
John 7:37
. This
fountain never fails us; we may draw, and draw again.
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