DEVday3

Day 3

Remove All The Bad Roots
It Is Possible

A misunderstanding of what we are like inside has made it difficult for many Christians
to see how there can be sin inside us. There is a common view that suggests that inside
we are like a jar, a container with a single compartment. Therefore, when we give our
life to Jesus, He forgives our sins and the jar is now clean. Now that we are pure on the
inside, we should be able to act pure on the outside.
The reason this view is in error is that this is never the way it works.
The truth is that inside we are more like a honeycomb than a honey jar. We have many
compartments inside, not just one. Some of the compartments contain Jesus, and those
are like the "good roots" referred to in Scripture. These good roots produce good fruit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness

(Galatians 5:22-23).

"Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A

good tree

cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. . . Therefore

by their fruits you

will know them."

(Matthew 7:17-18, 20).

However, some of the compartments still contain bad roots. These bad roots produce
bad fruit and they are still present and continue to produce bad fruit even after we
become a Christian. These bad roots are shown as dark spots in the following
honeycomb diagram.

We need to allow Jesus into each compartment of the "Honeycomb" that has darkness in
it. This transformation is a process, not a one-time event.
This is the sanctification process which the Bible talks about. Bringing Jesus into each
compartment is the process of being changed into His image.
Once Jesus has taken up residence in that particular place in our "Honeycomb," He
produces the good fruit automatically, because Jesus can do nothing but produce good
fruit. It is His nature. As He takes over that part of our heart, His nature actually
becomes ours in that area. This good root, that now resides in that part of our
"Honeycomb", then produces good fruit.
For instance, if we have struggled with lying, we have found that trying hard not to lie
hasn't worked (trying implies use of our willpower). We find ourselves still lying. We
need to find the bad root. Perhaps we realize that our father lied to us, and we judged
him for it (we sinned by judging him). This bad root is causing our bad fruit. When we
deal with the bad root and replace it with the life of Jesus, we find we just don’t lie
anymore. There is now good fruit, which is evidence of Jesus in that place in us. It is
now so natural not to lie that we may not even be aware that we are different, because it
is a new “us.” Does this sound too good to be true? Believe me, it is true. Better yet,
believe Jesus when He said,

"Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect"

(Matthew 5:48,

I added the bold).

When Jesus cleanses one compartment of the Honeycomb, it does not mean that all the
compartments are clean. Other bad roots will undoubtedly remain, and they will be
causing other bad fruit. We need to continue being transformed as God shows us areas
in our heart that need healing. This is what Paul meant when he said,

“….work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who

works in

you both to will and to do for His good pleasure”

(Philippians 2:12-13).

Ripeness
Jesus is directing your sanctification process and He is proceeding as fast as possible.
You are not behind schedule. We may want Him to go faster; but if He is going slowly,
you can be assured He is acting slowly for a good reason. For instance, if the bad root
relates to a very traumatic event, the memory of the event may be deeply buried. Before
revealing such a root to you, He spends time preparing you. He will not let you see it
until you will be able to see it without again being wounded. God's process will have
made you ripe to deal with this root.
“Ripeness” is like picking apples. If you try to pick an apple before it is ripe, it is
difficult to pull off the tree, and you are likely to damage the branch. However, ripe
apples fall off easily in your hand.
The following words spoken by Jesus give us greater understanding:

"He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he

who

loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest

Myself to him"

(

John 14:21).

"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears

much

fruit; for

without Me you can do nothing

(John 15:5, I added the bold).

"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept

Father's commandments and abide in His love"

(John 15:10).

The reason that we can be thrown into striving to keep God's commandments out of
our will power is that we are confused about how we go about pleasing God. We focus
on our behavior (keeping the commandments) rather than the cause of the behavior (our
heart condition). We try to keep the commandments in order to prove that we love
God. That is backwards.
We can only please God by first being changed into the image of Jesus in our
"Honeycomb," and then we will keep the commandments because that is now our new
nature. The heart has to change first, and then the behavior will change. Changing our
behavior does not change our heart. 1 John 4:19 says,

“We love him because He first loved us”.

This is the direction of the flow, from God to us, not the other way around.
Let me illustrate this with a parallel. Imagine that I break my leg. It hurts, so I take a
painkiller, and it hurts less. But the leg is still broken. If I neglect the painkiller, it hurts a
lot. The only way for my leg pain to go away is for my broken leg to heal.
Similarly, when I commit a sin that plants a bitter root, there is a wound in my heart.
The bitter root causes emotional pain and I have bad fruit, so I try to act differently. But
it doesn't work very well, because there is still a wound, a bad root, inside me.

Not Just For A Sick Few
Now that you understand the truth about bad fruit and bad roots, it should be clear that
this process is not something for only a few Christians who are really sick emotionally.
We all sin and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23), and Jesus died to set all of
us free from this bondage. This process of being changed into the image of Jesus,
which is also called "Inner Healing" by some people, and referred to as "sanctification" in
the Bible, is the normal walk for all Christians.

Summary
We have a tendency to sin often. When we do, we plant dark places in our
"Honeycomb," and these prevent us from following God's laws in those particular areas
of our life. These bad roots produce bad fruit. When we repent and allow Jesus into
those dark areas of our "Honeycomb," one area at a time, we are changed into His
image, step by step.

Reflection:

Do you imagine your life more like a honey jar or a honeycomb?

How does viewing your life like a honeycomb change your perspective?

Can you describe those stubborn areas in your life where you can’t seem to stop
doing what you hate (the “bad fruit”)?

Divinely Designed
Being changed into the image of Jesus

A miracle can happen to you, like the transformation that
happens when a worm is transformed into a butterfly
(2 Corinthians 3:18).

Devotional Version