Rootstock or New Creation

            I don’t know much about roses, but I know one type is sometimes grafted onto the rootstock of another. The rootstock had lived through the winter and the true nature of the rose was now coming out. Much to my surprise, within a few weeks a red rose opened up giving me red and pink roses on the same bush. It was unusual and kind of pretty, but neither looked as healthy as they should. Both were small and sickly.

            When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we are given a new nature. The Spirit of Christ comes to live within us. The problem arises when our old nature, our sinful nature, decides to show itself. There is a place inside me where the rootstock hides, now and then showing its true colors. They are things I thought were surrendered to His control, the inner self I thought was hidden. 

             We all have that hidden rootstock.  It may even be pretty to the world, like my rose, but it shows me for what I am, a sinner saved by grace, still bearing in my body the sin nature needing the touch of the Master’s hand. I am, after all, a work in progress. Those two natures living side by side will never be as healthy or beautiful as they would be if only the new natures God controls existed without the other to sap its strength and beauty.

             We are fortunate to have a loving God, who works within us so that, in the end, He can present us clean, a spotless and a perfect work of His wise and loving hands.

            What sinful thoughts and desires do you struggle to hide from the world? What do you fear popping out and revealing that you aren’t all you seem to be?

              Let God take care of your sinful rootstock, and replace it with His beautiful, thriving new creation able will bless others and show His love to a hurting world.