Fruit Inspection

I love a good Granny Smith apple. In fact, I like a lot of different kinds of fruit. When I was a kid, we had an apple orchard. There was a bit of an art to helping the trees bear great fruit. It was important to get out in front of the bugs and pests that prey on apple trees. Our apples were never quite like the ones purchased from the produce department, but they made great pies!

Jesus, when teaching in His famous Sermon on the Mount, talked about symbolic fruit from our lives. He is careful to make a distinction between motives and fruit. The fruit of my life will eventually reveal my motives. My motives are my what “motivates my behavior” and that comes from deep within my heart. Check this out…

⁴³ “A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. ⁴⁴ A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. ⁴⁵ A good person produces good 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. (Luke 6:443-45 NLT)

I believe that my heart is revealed through my behavior. There are so many instances in our culture where we focus on behavior modification. I remember thinking a long time ago that we should really go to the source of behavior – the heart.  If a person is rude and hateful, their heart is the problem. If a person is kind and loving, their heart is the source and the reason for their kindness.

My heart is often shaped by my response to my journey in life. If I never cultivate or tend to my heart, it will grow cold and become hard. I believe that prayer and the study of God’s Word can keep my heart shapable and moldable to His Image.  I want to be a person who pursues God’s heart. God’s heart is perfect. God’s heart is full of love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness. I believe God created from His heart. I believe He introduced grace from His heart.

Back to the fruit – my behavior is the fruit of my heart. If my anger is out of control, it’s a direct reflection of a heart problem.  I think that EVERY behavior problem is a heart problem. I must guard my heart. I must surrender my heart. I must have help cultivating my heart. The Lord loves a surrendered heart. A surrendered heart can help the fruit of my heart to be beautiful and noticeable to others.

Pressing On!

Dwayne