General Stuff

Root decay

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This week, I sat in a chair at the dentist office and looked at pictures of my tooth falling apart.

The good news? It doesn’t hurt.

The bad news? It will hurt unless I get a root canal.

Actually, hearing about getting the root canal hurt, too, because he mentioned the price. But, that’s another story for another day. My takeaway was that root decay carries with it all kinds of danger, and the most notable is this:

When the root decays, everything else crumbles.

When the root decays, everything else crumbles. Share on X

The Bible has a lot to say about roots, and we could spend a lot of time talking about a lot of them. Hebrews 12:15 warns us of the havoc a root of bitterness can wreak. Mark 4:17 tells us that we can’t withstand trouble without roots.

On the positive side, multiple passages remind us that strong roots lead to fruitfulness, thankfulness, and prosperity (see Jeremiah 17:7-8; Colossians 2:6-7; and Psalm 1:3).

It’s not a stretch to say that culture is crumbling. After the slap heard ‘round the world, people couldn’t even agree on whether they should say that it’s wrong to publicly assault someone on national television. When the roots of absolute truth decay, it’s impossible to say with any conviction what is wrong or right, even when the wrong is so clearly wrong.

As culture is clamoring for a way to make judgement calls while still holding to the lie that truth is relative, God is purifying His bride to the core of who She is. Why? So that we can have the pure, unadulterated, truth in the depths of who we are so that WE can be the ones who make the judgement calls because someone has to be the voice of reason and truth.

Will people like it? Probably not. When Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Light (John 14:6), He made three absolute statements. Is it any surprise that people tend to agree with two-thirds of them? Lost people are thankful when they find the Way, and people trapped in darkness celebrate when they see the Light of the rescue team.

But people who have given themselves over to a lie? They don’t rejoice in the Truth; they try to kill it.

Which is why we must have strong roots. Roots that keep us connected to the source of all truth, because if we have root decay, it’s only a matter of time before we have truth decay, too.

Photo by Ozkan Guner on Unsplash

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April 1, 2022by Paul Jenkins
Written by Paul Jenkins
Paul Jenkins is lead pastor of The Gathering, a community church located in beautiful downtown Albemarle, North Carolina. He's the author of God is My Air Traffic Controller and My Name's Not Lou. Paul is passionate about his wife, his 3 children, running, reading, coaching, leading people who are following Jesus, Swedish Fish and the Carolina Panthers.