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Faith Lift


HOW IS YOUR ROOT SYSTEM?


W


BY PASTOR RUSS WINN


e all have areas in our lives that need to be changed in order to be all that God has des- tined us to become. If we want to grow, devel-


op and have a beter tomorrow, we will have to make some radical changes intentionally: intentionally plan to be differ- ent, beter, stronger and more of who God made us to be.


WE ALL NEED RADICAL CHANGE IN OUR LIVES. This word “radical” is misunderstood today because the


original meaning is lost in general. To many, “radical” means “fanatical” — over the top, excessive, extreme, on the edge religiously or politically. In reality, “radical” comes from the 14th-century Latin word “radicalis,” which means “from the roots or to be rooted in the original state.” Medically, radical surgery cuts out the disease at its root. Botanically, the radi- cal leaves are closest to the root. Mathematically, the radical number is the root of the equation. Grammatically, the radi- cal word is the root word without prefixes and the suffixes. What we need today are not fanatical believers, but


radical believers who go back to the New and Old Testa- ment, to learn what God intended for us to do in the first place without all of the trappings, traditions, rules, regula- tions and restrictions — to go back to the original words of


Jesus and apply them to life. That is a radical believer. Ephesians 3:17-19 (NLT): “May your ROOTS go down deep into the soil of God’s marvel-


ous love. And may you have the power to understand how wide, and how long, and how high and how deep His love really is. May you experience this love.” In other words, Paul is telling us not to just know it mentally and say, “Oh, yeah, I know God loves me,” but to feel it at gut level. Experience it so that you know deep down, no mater what happens in your life, God is never going to stop loving you, all the while loving him back with that same kind of love. That is what it means to be rooted. Paul continues in the verse, “May your roots go down in the soil of his love. May you


experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you’ll never fully understand it..” Our brain capacity isn’t big enough to comprehend this on a mental level. God wants us to be rooted in the Word on an emotional level that cannot be explained intellectually. Paul continues to say that if you do these things, if you radically root your life in how much God loves you, “Then you will be filled with the fullness of life….” You will have a fulfilling, mean-


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