Good Apples and Bad Apples

Jesus taught you would know a tree by its fruit. He went further in the analogy to say that He was the vine/trunk and we (His followers) are the branches. He talked about the branch bearing fruit, good fruit, fruit that will last.

Paul continued this analogy and said that there are two trees, a cultivated tree (the tree of life) and the wild tree (a tree that leads to death. Hmm, could this be the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?).

He also stated that each branch (person) bears fruit according to the tree it is living out of. A branch that is living according to the wild tree (the selfishness of fallen man) will produce one kind of fruit (which is bad/sinful/wrong) and the branch living according to the tree of life (the Spirit) will produce another kind of fruit (which is right, just, love, joy, peace, etc.).

There is a whole lot of talk about producing good fruit, but the questions is: Where does the fruit come from?

The reality is the fruit comes from what’s inside the tree. The branch is an extension of that tree. The Fruit is what it is because of what is on the inside, not because it tries to be something different.

Another important thing to remember is that no branch is perfect; perfectly good or perfectly bad. There is no branch that is all good fruit. Even good branches have a few bad apples from time to time. There are very few branches that have all bad fruit. Even some of the worst of branches have at least a couple good apples here and there.

The key issue is what vine/tree am I (the branch) connected to? The kind of tree I’m a part of will determine the primary kind of fruit I produce. But, in the fallen broken world death does exist and so from time to time we will all have some bad apples even on the best of branches.

Do we accept the bad fruit? No! Do we cut the branch off and throw it away because of a bad fruit here and there? No! According to Jesus the only branch that was going to be cut off and thrown away was the branch that didn’t produce any fruit (John 15).

We need to aspire to be the best branch we can be, allowing the Holy Spirit of God to prune out those areas of our life that are unproductive branches, so we can be even more fruitful.

We also must remember that if the overwhelming majority of the fruit being produced in our life is bad fruit we really need to check and see if we are really connected to the right tree.

One more thing to remember is that growth and more fruit come because the branch allows the life of the tree to flow through it (it’s a giver), not hold on to it for itself. The more fruit bearing a branch is, the more the live of the tree is flowing through that branch, thus the greater the experience and fuller the life of that branch.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/970640/good_apples_and_bad_apples.html

Getting Serious

We just finished a series called BECOMING A SPIRITUAL BLACKBELT where we emphasized Spiritual Maturity.

We discussed the 4 key disciplines that are necessary to build upon a persevering/unwavering commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. The application of these 4 key disciplines will cause us to grow and mature, but a breakdown in any one of these disciplines effects the whole experience. It is important to understand that you are only as mature as your weakest area.

In a nutshell the 4 disciplines were 1) Growing in the knowledge of God, 2) Application of the knowledge we gain, 3) Prayer, and 4) Community.

Here’s the breakdown:
1) Growing in the knowledge of God – If you don’t know it you can’t do it! How do you know what you believe or how you should behave?

2) Application of the knowledge we gain – The experience is in the doing, not the knowing. So, get busy applying/obeying those commands of loving one another, serving one another, telling the Gospel to others, tithing, giving generously, correcting, staying sexually pure, taking a Sabbath, and so on.

3) Prayer – talking to God and listening to God talk to us. Maintaining lines of communication and tapping into the supernatural side of life.

4) Community – We can’t do this alone. We need one another to instruct, encourage, hold accountable, correct, rebuke, and pray for each other. No one knows it all. No one can do it all. We need each other. No ONE of us is as smart or as strong or as productive as ALL of us!

All that said… the question is… what do we do now?

The answer: Get Serious! No playing games with God. Notice these scriptures:

Hebrews 2:1-3 1We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

Hebrews 3:12-14 12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

Hebrews 10:23-31 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
26If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," and again, "The Lord will judge his people." 31It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Hebrews 12:1-4 1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

2Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

2Peter 1:5-11 5For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.
10Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

How serious do these scriptures come across regarding the subject of living out our faith sincerely, whole-heartedly, passionately, zealously, eagerly, without compromise?

When you read these scriptures do you sense a seriousness about it? Do you sense an urgency? Do you sense that your faith/relationship with God/doing God’s will should be a priority in your life? I sense that this is a BIG deal!

To the Baby Christian/New Believer these may seem scary or intimidating… don’t let them be. While these can warn and encourage you (the new believer) to take your faith seriously, these are actually written for those who have claimed to follow Jesus for some time and should be mature in their faith. But, new believers should also hear this message and take their faith seriously from the start so they do not fall prey to satan’s strategies to keep them ineffective in their knowledge of God.

So many of us believe whole-heartedly the truth of God’s Word when it comes to Jesus and salvation, but we seem to stop there. We stop reading or listening. The truth is there is more to the Christian life, more in promise and more in responsibility.

We’re told we will all be held accountable for what we did and didn’t do (in thought, word, and deed) in life with all our talents, time, and wealth.

It’s not always that we’re off sinning doing something wrong/immoral. We may simply be NOT doing what we should. Or, we may be doing something that is simply different/less than what God has called us to do. This too is sin.

If we’re constantly busied by pursuing our own selfish ambition, or by working to make that extra buck to buy that extra unnecessary thing then how will we have the time to fulfill God’s commands of being a faithful follower of Jesus, a Godly Spouse, Godly Parent, Faithful Friend, and Faithful Witness? We won’t! Something’s got to give! We cannot do it all!

We will have to decide what is most important, what is the biggest priority. We can always tell what is most important because that is what you are most serious about. You invest the majority of your time, energy, and money into what matters most.

You can say it’s God and family, but what does your schedule and check book say? How much time are you really giving to spending time with the Lord? How much time are you giving to serving the Lord? How big of a giver are you? How much time do you spend with your family? How serious do you take the commands of God? How serious are you at following God’s instructions and commands? How seriously do you pray for the lost and look for the opportunities to share the Good News of Jesus with those around you? When is the last time you led anyone to Jesus? How easily do other things distract you and cause you to stray from faithful pursuit of God? How easy is it to get you to compromise in your commitment to the Lord in time, giving, obedience, morality, serving, etc? How quickly do you gossip or speak negatively/critically of others?

Many people walk around declaring their belief and commitment to the Lord, but you can tell what kind of tree it is by the fruit that it produces. Loyalty, commitment, faithfulness are three words that some would say to look for and they’re right, but it’s not just these three words… it’s WHAT they are loyal, committed, and faithful to! Is it God and his ways and his purposes and his priorities or is it something of this temporal world?

So what do we do? Get serious! Determine not to be nominal. There are rewards to gain or loose. There is a judgment day to face. There will be an account with our Heavenly Father.

How many times have we ditched God for something less important? How many times has God placed us among sinners to be a light and we never told them about Jesus?

Let’s do what we claim to be! As a follower of Jesus… Follow!

We can say, these other things came up, but the reality is… we do what we want to do. If we want to go to church, nothing can keep us from it. If we want to be at cell group, nothing can keep us from it. If we want to tithe, nothing can stop us. If we want to tell the lost about Jesus, nothing can keep us from it. If we want to be stingy, gossipy, dishonoring to God, work excessively, be materialistic, lie, steal, stay home and watch football, commit adultery nothing will keep us from it. We do what we want to do!

What do you want? What is your priority? What is most important to you? Is it Jesus or the things of this world? Don’t fool yourself, because you’re certainly not fooling God or anyone around you.

1John 2:15-17 15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

The sowing and reaping principle

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed... Matthew 13:31

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Galatians 6:7

6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9As it is written:
"He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever." 10Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 2Corinthians 9:6-11

Based on these texts we see the Kingdom of God is based on a seed/sowing and reaping principle.

This is a breakdown of five key principles of sowing and reaping. There are other principles to entertain: Quality of soil, preparation of soil, quality of seed, tending the seed planted, and so on. A lot can be said for each of these.

The goal of this message is to address more of the outcome of the sowing and reaping as opposed to the full process from start to finish.

It’s important to note that these principles apply to every area of life, not exclusively to agriculture, finances, or whatever you might isolate it to. The fact is Jesus taught that this is the principle of the Kingdom of God, not a piece of it, but the whole thing. Every promise, every circumstance and issue, all of it!

Here are 5 key principles we need to understand.

1. You reap/harvest what you sow/plant.
If you want tomatoes don’t plant apple seeds. If you sow love, in time, you will reap love. If you plant material blessings, in time, you’ll reap material blessings. If you plant nothing, you’ll get nothing.

2. The degree/measure that I plant is the degree I will harvest.
The more seed I plant, the more plants will grow and the more fruit will be produced. One seed equals one plant, but usually more than one fruit grows on a plant, so the return on planted seed is a multiplied return, not just addition. God multiplies blessings upon us.

3. God’s plan is to make me abound (in context financially, but God intends for us to abound in all grace in every good work and this includes every area of life).
To abound means to go above. It means on a scale of 1 to 10, 11. Abounding means to exceed the need. In vs 8 we’re told God will cause “all grace to abound” (it’s His intention to exceed the need and provide richly for) so that we may “abound in every good work”. We’re told in vs 11, “you will be made rich in every way…” Rich meaning more than enough or abundantly supplied for, in every way. Whatever need I face material, physical, emotional, etc I will be richly provided for.

4. As the seed grows and produces fruit, remember that not all that fruit is for you to eat… within the fruit is more seed to plant and produce more!
It’s important to note that God gives us both seed and bread. Seed is for planting, bread is for eating. Note that God brings increase of seed first, so it’s increase for planting first then increase for consumption. Too many of us are quick to take the blessing of the Lord and consume it, but we’re eating our seed. This leads us back to principle #1, if I don’t plant anything I won’t reap anything. So, be prayerful and careful about blessings in your life. Why did God bless you in this way? Is the blessing bread to meet a need or want in your life or is it seed that God expects you to use to meet a need or want in the life of someone else? You can only answer this through prayer and discernment.

5. From planting to harvest is called a season. It takes time for seed to grow and produce fruit. It’s a process, not instantaneous.
We must understand that the blessing is not always an instantaneous result. Often times there is a season involved for the seed we’ve planted to grow, mature, and become fruit bearing.

Impatience will rob us of the fruit/blessing. Impatience will see no immediate fruit and say, “This isn’t working!” “This takes too long!” “This is too hard!” and quit. We get impatient and angry and we abandon the seed (watering it with our faith and praise), or we’ll cut down the fruitless plant before it’s season of fruit bearing. The bottom line is our impatience and lack of faith/trust in God robs us of what would have come to us in due season. We get angry at God about it, but who’s to blame? Not God, not even the Devil, it’s me! My own self is to blame, no body else.

Take the time to consider how these principles apply to your relationship with God, spouse, parents, children, friends, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, even your enemies.

Take the time to consider how these principles apply to your health, wealth, and so on.

The Test

2Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you fail the test?

I read these words and they make me very uncomfortable.

Depending on the translation you read some have the words “examine yourself” first in the sentence while others have the words “test yourselves”, either way it’s unnerving.

Let’s break this statement down before getting to the meat.

To examine something is to make through inspection, leave no rock unturned. It’s a serious and focused look, not some casual glance.

A test is a tool to answer the question: do I know or can I perform enough to qualify. Am I really the real deal? Am I really a 10th grader, am I really a Green Beret, am I really a mechanic, am I really a follower of Christ/Child of God? Tests answer these questions and more.

We’re called to thoroughly inspect/examine our lives and to test ourselves to answer a very important question… am I in the faith.

Of coarse for some, they’ve never put Jesus in charge of their life and don’t claim to follow Him, so the answer is easy and obvious, but this scripture wasn’t written to non-Christians. It was written to followers of Jesus. This is important!

The fact we, as Christians, are told to test and examine ourselves to make sure we’re in the faith points toward a reality stated at the end of the verse… we can fail the test. It points to the reality that no matter how sincere and perfect we started out we can get off track/stray and end up outside of the faith.

Proof: Look at the story Jesus told to illustrate how the condition of people’s hearts determines their overall response to the truth of God’s word and it’s affect in their lives.

Luke 8:11-15 11 “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

This same story is found in Matthew 13:1-23 and Mark 4:14-20. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with all three versions of the story, because there is some details that each brings out that are worth noting.

According to this story Jesus teaches that not everyone will turn to good/ accept the word of God in their life. In fact, Jesus tells us about 25% of the people we share with will not accept it. (Hard soil along the path)

Well, 75% isn’t bad. Right? Wrong. Another 25% (Stony ground) will hear it and accept it but their commitment is shallow and because of their “what’s in it for me” attitude when hard times come because they follow Jesus they will abandon ship.

So, 50% of the people we share with, in the end, will not live for Jesus.

Well, that still leaves us 50% to respond to the truth, experience the life of God, and go to heaven! Right? Wrong.

Another 25% (Thorny ground) will believe and follow until something better comes along. They don’t cease to believe, but they don’t make following Jesus the number one priority in their life. They will focus most of their time, energy, thought, and effort toward the accumulation of things and experiencing a variety of pleasures that this life has to offer. While they believe in Jesus, it is these things that are priority to them and these things that they live for.

So, 75% of the people will be of no value to God in the advancement of His Kingdom here on earth. 50% in the big picture will not believe and live for God and another 25% believe (and may go to heaven), but produce no good fruit.

The final 25% (Good Soil) is the only soil that will actually have long-term deep commitment and will produce large quantities of fruit, thus personally experiencing the life of God and being of value to God in the advancement of His Kingdom here on earth.

Even in this final 25% there is variance from one person to the next on just how productive they will be.

I had some questions based on 3 scriptures to test themselves and examine their life with. They were: 1) Do I seek God first above all other things? 2) Do I Know God’s word, do I believe God’s Word, and do I do God’s Word? 3) Am I becoming more and more like Jesus in thought, word, and deed?

But, I want to provide another tool to test us and evaluate our lives with… this story from Jesus. WHAT SOIL ARE YOU?


It seems like it would be an easy question, but take the time to study the attributes, qualities, and characteristics of each soil, their experiences, their responses, their results.

I’ve done this study and am going to post it in the document section of this website.

I encourage you to take the time to figure out where your heart/life is in relation to following Jesus faithfully and experiencing the life He’s planned for you.

It’s important that the test isn’t made up by the ideas or opinions of some guy. Let God’s word be the source and standard of our test.

Take the test! Be honest. How are you doing? Are you all you thought and said?

You are not taking the test so you can be condemned, but so you can have an accurate diagnosis on how healthy your relationship with Jesus is, an evaluation on how well you are running your race!

The whole point of this evaluation/test is to find the areas of weakness and make improvements! Not see how bad we are and quit.

We want to know where we’re missing it and how, so we can correct the issues and really experience the life God promises us in Jesus and be all he made us to be.

God is gracious, merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, rich in love, forgiving, patient and He is on your side. He wants you to win! He’s cheering you on and believes you can do it, you have what it takes, just don’t loose sight of the fact we are all human and have weaknesses and tendencies to stray, so we’ll need to make corrections regularly.