Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday March 28, 2007

Yesterday's note on the growth of Bamboo resulted in numerous comments, all of which are insightful to the bamboo and too the human condition.

Long time friend and author, Kenn Gividen sent the following information and I really like this one:

"The moso is a bamboo plant that grows in China and the far east. After the moso is planted, no visible growth occurs for up to five years - event under ideal conditions! Then, as if by magic, it suddenly begins growing at the rate of nearly two and one half feet per day, reaching a full height of ninety feet within six weeks. But it's not magic. The moso's rapid growth is due to the miles of roots it develops during those first five years, five years of getting ready."

Notice the phrase, "Five years of getting ready."

Bamboo is not an instant growth plant and neither is the Christian life. Certainly we who believe in Christ are "instantly" born again and become children of God. Becoming a functioning Christian takes a life time of growing in the Lord. Notice the progression in the following passage:

Colossians 2:6: As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: 7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

First in verse 6 you have the conversion experience, the command to walk or progress in Him. As we walk with Christ the growing process takes hold and the 'root' system is expanding, so that the great storms which come into most lives do not destroy us. And it is observable that years of reading the scriptures and submitting to the teaching, people often seem like overnight giants in the faith. They may be giants in the faith, but it did not happen overnight.

Roots are the result of nourishing the mind and heart. Winston Churchill knew this and often Quoted Longfellow's famous lines:

"The heights of great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night."

Too many Christians are rooted only in the jibber jabber of some favorite preacher and know little to nothing of the Lord or of His word. The modern Christian home is barren of Christian literature and for the most part the inhabitants have no clue as to family prayers and devotions. For shame.

We keep coming back to the grand truth of Galatians 6:9, don't faint, get roots

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit.

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