Ah, yes! Spring is finally in the air. I can tell because my nose is running furiously! Before I go any further, here is a stock tip for you investors out there…BUY Claritin stock NOW! It seems that the groundhog has now been put on a 24 hour suicide watch after its infamous prediction and we can all go on with life. I love Spring! I love seeing the newness of plants and trees coming to life. I also love the 2 weeks of milder weather we get here in Texas before it is officially Summer! But one thing I love most about the Spring is my peach tree in my back yard! It is starting to come to life and will be producing some of the best peaches. I love a good, cold, juicy Texas peach in the Summer time.
I planted that tree in my back yard about 7 years ago. It has produced peaches for 5 years. I look forward to it each year. I prune the tree in the winter, I fertilize, water, spray and take care of the tree so I will have great peaches in the Summer. I would be confused if it didn’t produce good peaches. Good peaches!
Luke 6:43-45 says it this way,
A good tree can’t produce bad fruit and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thorn bushes and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. A good person produces things from the treasury of a good heart and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.
So, good trees produce good fruit! Like I crave my good peaches in the Summer, God craves us as individuals to produce good fruit too. It is what the owner of the tree desires. It is what brings the owner of the tree the most increase or return on investment. On the contrary, bad trees produce bad fruit. Bad trees cost time, money and effort. More attention is given to the bad tree trying to make the bad tree produce good fruit than to the good tree to increase its production of good fruit. In reality, the bad tree should probably be cut down and more attention re-focused to the good tree to produce a greater yield. This is just good, solid business practice. It can be applied to many facets of our lives when we look at ourselves and what is producing versus what is not. It’s the pruning we don’t enjoy. It hurts…for a moment…then the good, the better comes from it.
This parable of Jesus goes directly to the heart. Both good and bad trees look the same just as one person looks like they are okay on the outside like the next. However, like a tree that produces good or bad fruit, a person can be good of bad and identified by listening to the words they speak. Those words are the fruit of what lies beyond their outer “bark”…it comes from their heart.
John Mason, author of An Enemy Called Average, said this…
The measure of a man is not who he appears to be on Sunday in church, rather who he is Monday through Saturday.
We have to look beyond the bark to see the tree or person for what and who they really are.
Constant pruning and tilling of the soil of our heart needs to be continually at the forefront of our lives. We need to continue to add to our soil to produce the fruit that God intended us to produce. Our words and attitudes need to match our fruit. God wants us to produce good fruit. He wants us to produce high yields. After all, He invested His only son into our soil…its what is beyond His bark…
What is beyond the bark in your life?
What is the fruit of your life?
Are you a good tree? What can you do either produce more good fruit?
Are you a bad tree? What do you need to cut down in order produce new life?
oneguyseyes 