Think of all the huge Christmas trees standing in public places 50 or more feet high. With their attractive decoration they are the admiration of passersby.

However, for all their beauty, they stand in stark contrast to all the conifers in the world's forests. These Christmas trees have no roots. They have been chopped down and erected in tubs or holes in the paving-stones. During the Christmas period they appear to be healthy.

How many people resemble those trees! They have a semblance of a pious life. Brought up amid an established Christian culture, they attend religious services and support charities without having any true relationship to God.

After the Christmas season those trees will be taken away. What will happen to them? They may be used for planks or for heating, while the fir trees in the forests continue to grow, having life in them.

If our faith is merely in a religion, we are like those Christmas trees. Our spiritual life is no more than pretense. Maybe we have been christened or married in a church. We are only nominal Christians through social convention.

If, on the other hand, we know Jesus Christ as our Savior, our spiritual life is rooted in Him. Which class do you belong to? Are you only a nominal Christian? Or have you a true, living relationship to God?

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly... but his delight is in the law of the Lord.... He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither."
-- Psalm 1:1-3

Author unknown