Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Acts 5-6
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 6:43-45
Jesus: Count on this: no good tree bears bad fruit, and no bad tree bears good fruit. You can know a tree by the fruit it bears. You don’t find figs on a thorn bush, and you can’t pick grapes from a briar bush. It’s the same with people. A person full of goodness in his heart produces good things; a person with an evil reservoir in his heart pours out evil things. The heart overflows in the words a person speaks; your words reveal what’s within your heart.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
We don’t know much about fruit trees in our modern society. We go to the grocery’s produce aisle and get our fruit from all over the world and it just sort of shows up. And we get apples and oranges and grapes and strawberries and every other kind of fruit almost any time of year. We get pretty spoiled because we assume that everything just grows all the time because we can get it all the time. Sometimes the prices fluctuate pretty wildly and we don’t always understand why.
Of course the reason is that every fruit has its own growing season. And some of the fruit we get in the off season comes from some pretty exotic places or from large greenhouses where they can regulate the artificial sunlight and temperatures to simulate the natural environment where the fruit normally grows. We forget it costs a lot to artificially create what God makes for us for free. So we complain about the high prices of fruit, but pay the money or move on to something that is a little less expensive.
If you really look at the fruit that comes into the market, you’ll find that some is better than others, even among the fruit in the bin. And if you eat enough fruit from the store, invariably, you’ll come across a piece or two that really looks good, but really tastes bad. Why? I don’t know. I’m not an arborist, but I can come back to this verse and tell you that it was a bad tree that grew that bad fruit. And I would bet that when the grower finds out that the tree is producing bad fruit, that tree will be cut down and replaced with seed or sprouts from a good tree.
Fruit orchards and farms are continually planting and replacing trees and plants to get the best fruit and the best harvest possible. Even in those fancy greenhouses, some of the plants must be replaced because something will happen within the seed or the mix of nutrients or the way a stalk or limb grows and the fruit will not meet the standards set by the growers or the buyers. The grower rips out the bad producer and replants a new one expecting a better return.
So what does fruit have to do with us? God made us to produce fruit. Not the kind you eat, but spiritual fruit. The kind Paul talks about in his letter to the church in the city of Galatia. God created us to produce unconditional love, joy, peace, patience, kindheartedness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But unlike fruit trees that only produce one kind of fruit, He wants us to produce all of these all the time. Paul talks about fruit, not fruits of the spirit. God wants to see all nine of these develop in us as we walk with Him each day.
Just like a good arborist, God will work on our lives to help us produce a good crop of these characteristics if we let Him. Sometimes that process will be painful. Sometimes it’s necessary to chop off branches that are not producing fruit or that are diseased. Sometimes it’s necessary to prune the limbs so they can better use the nutrients in the soil. Sometimes it means we will go through some pretty tough trials for God to shape us into the person He intends us to become. Just like those trees in the orchard or the plants on the farm, careful tending produces the best crops.
Sometimes I think it’s a little unfortunate that most of our kids have never been to a working farm. They don’t understand the nature of life and death as well as past generations. They don’t understand the cycle of life that begins with a tiny seed, goes through the growing season, produces a harvest, and provides seed again for the cycle to begin again. They don’t know the work it takes to put food in the markets where we push our carts around and pick the vegetables and fruit we want to consume. We’ve lost a lot of the wonder of nature because of our urban and suburban lifestyles.
So do you want to learn about Jesus’ words and really put them to heart? Go visit an orchard. There is probably one not too far from where you live. Make a day trip of it one weekend and learn about growing fruit. Find out from the grower the process of taking care of those trees and find out the story behind that bushel of fruit he sells. Then with that knowledge in mind, let God the perfect gardener help you produce the best spiritual fruit you can.
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