It takes a lot of hard work and a refusal to compromise. Good fruit from a follower of Jesus Christ is no accident. If you want good fruit to be produced from your life, it is going to take exactly the same sort of hard work. It takes a gifted farmer, a lot of hard work and a refusal to compromise. To get fruit like that is not accident of nature. The fruit is so ripe the juices drip down your chin so ripe a peach practically peels itself. Overriding everything is a mix of complex flavors, both floral and fruity, so mouth-filling they seem almost meaty. Then comes a tart tang that gives the sugar some backbone. The first impression is of powerful syrupy sweetness. It reads:īite into one of Fitz Kelly’s Lady in Red peaches and the flavor is enough to make you gasp. The article begins with a description that makes my mouth water. One article titled “The Orchard Masters” explain how two people named Fitz Kelly and Art Lang grow fruit that most people only dream about. What I found provides great insight into Christ’s words. But I decided to do a little internet search this week on how to get fruit from trees. And I thought that was all there was to know about getting fruit from trees. All of us who have ever done much gardening or fruit picking know that sick and weak trees produce a meager crop, and the fruit such a tree does produce is often paltry and tasteless maybe even bitter. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.Ĭhrist’s statement is fairly obvious. Jesus begins to talk about this in Luke 6:43-44 where he tells us that all trees bear fruit. If you really want an honest glimpse into your own heart, you must listen to your words. We are always able to justify our actions and give excuses for our behavior. Do you want to see the planks in your own eye? Do you want to discover what sin your are hiding in your heart? Don’t look at your actions. This is not a way for you to notice sin in others, but a way for you to see sin in your own life. So in Luke 6:43-45, Jesus provides a way to help each of us see our own sin. We are blind to the sin in our lives so obvious to everyone else. But He knows that most of us have a big problem seeing the planks in our own eyes. Jesus has taught all of this so far in Luke 6. It is only when you remove the plank from your own eye, that you become able to help others remove the speck from theirs. You cannot help somebody else with their sin if you are blind to your own. Becoming honest with ourselves begins with looking to the sin in our own lives before we point the finger at somebody else. Our attitude toward ourselves should be honesty (Luke 6:39-45). Our attitude toward others should be love (Luke 6:27-38). Our attitude toward circumstances should be to trust God (Luke 6:20-26). Christ teaches us that living as His disciple is all about our attitude. This is the next lesson of Christ’s sermon in Luke 6. If you want to judge your own character, listen to what you say. We are experts at seeing only the good actions in our lives, and overlooking or excusing the bad. It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out of him.ĭo you want to judge your own character and condition of your heart? Don’t look at your behavior. It is the tongue that sets the body on fire. It is out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. There is even a saying we have all heard: “Actions speak louder than words.” I am not necessarily disagreeing with that, but the Bible says that words speak loud enough by themselves. Most people think actions reveal the heart. If they did, they would be more careful about what they said and how they said it. The things you say, and how you say them expose and unveil the condition and attitudes of your heart. If that is true, it is more true that you are what you say. You’ve heard it said that you are what you eat.
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