Is The Fruit You Are Producing Nourishing or Poisoning
Luke 3:8-9 Amplified Bible (AMP)
8Bear fruits that are deserving and consistent with [your] repentance [that is, conduct worthy of a heart changed, a heart abhorring sin]. And do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father; for I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up descendants for Abraham. 9Even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees, so that every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.
I remember when I was a young child, I was in the yard at our home, in New York and I was roaming our yard as I did quite frequently, and I came across something to me that looked like fruit. It smelled like fruit, but before I could do what most kids my age would do, my mother walked up on me. She said “Lisa do not eat that, it is poisonous.” I could not image that anything that looked like fruit and smelled like fruit would not be good to eat or good for you. Much to my bewilderment, I found out in that moment that everything that looks good and smells good and resembles something familiar is not good for you and even more surprisingly could be poisonous.
As I woke this morning and prayed I heard so clear, “what are you growing?” This morning, as with most mornings, my husband on his way to work, texted me a word of encouragement for my day, which simply said, “Your fruit saves lives.” All I could do was let the tears that had formed while reading these words fall. We all produce fruit, but what type of fruit are we producing? Our life is fruit, our words can be fruit and our actions and behaviors are fruit as well. The Bible reminds us that there are attributes and character traits that are categorized as fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). But just as I learned that morning just as there is fruit that is good to eat, there are trees that produce fruit that can make us sick, and even cause us extreme harm and death. This is the same with us. Just as love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control add life to us as believers and to those we encounter and God assigns to us; The acts of the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like (Galatians 5:19-21) are poisons that can be harmful, destructive and even kill us, but sadly enough it can have a profound effect upon those with whom we encounter and include in actions, behaviors and attitudes towards, especially when we claim Christ. We poison people to the thought of Christ and having a relationship with God because of how we handle our lives and treat them.
We think that having a casual conversation where we are bashing others is okay, but it isn’t its poison. Our misuse of our body through ingesting, abusing and engaging in things that God specifically instructs us not to is poison. Our bad attitude and the dissention that we stir up at work, at home, in and through social and organizational affiliations and in church is poison. Our anger, unforgiveness, our cut throat mentality, our jealousy and our judgment of others and their circumstance is poison. My mom used to say to us, if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all. If you can’t do something good, don’t do anything. There are many of us that need to adopt this motto to live by. Many of us are not producing fruit that is fit for consumption by the way we are living our lives. We are poisoning ourselves and others. We need to take inventory and see what has grown and is growing in our lives and cut away those things that are poisonous and burn them up, before God’s ax is raised upon our lives. Just because we seem to be blessed and all seems to be relatively well with our lives, does not mean that God is pleased with us and His ax is not poised and ready to cut down. Are you the tree that feeds, saves, nourishes, or the one that poisons, makes ill and corrupts? Our desire as ones called of God should be to become the fruit that nourishes, feeds, saves and preserves those around us, for this is the true heart of a servant and child of God!
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