1 Thessalonians 5:21
Test all things; hold fast what is good.
Matthew 7:17-23
"Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them. 21 Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name? 23 And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!"
One night I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and I was thinking about what my next topic would be to blog about. In my mind I heard, "a good tree bears good fruit." In the above scripture Jesus likens man to a tree and our deeds to the fruit being produced by that tree. A good healthy tree will produce good healthy fruit, but a diseased tree will only produce fruit that is toxic to the body and unfit for consumption. You cannot call a tree that produces diseased fruit "good" nor can you call a tree that produces healthy fruit "bad." There is only one way to know if a tree truly is good or bad and that is by the fruit it produces... "Therefore by their fruits you will know them."
When I was a child we had an orange tree in our back yard that had a rough year, it didn't yield a very good crop at all. What oranges did grow weren't very good. I remember my grandparents and my father talking it over and they decided to give it one more year. Throughout the year they would water it, nurture it, watch it and see what it yielded. If it gave a good crop they would keep it assuming it had just a bad year, but if it had another bad year they knew the tree was no longer good for fruit and needed to be chopped down. At the end of the year the crop seemed to be the same or worse than the year before so my dad chopped it down.
We as people have a little more time than the orange tree to prove ourselves "good" or "bad." God is very gracious in His dealings with us as flawed man...
2Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning [His] promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us,* not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.-and-
Romans 2:4
Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
However, we also know that God is just and true to His word. We know that "fruit" is a metaphor for the deeds in a persons life, so what deeds does God classify as bad fruit? For this I found Galatians 5:19-21. Notice it states in verse 21 "that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Meaning that those who make a continual pattern of behavior, those who constantly produce "bad fruit" "will not inherit the kingdom of God" or as Matthew 7:19 puts it "
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." I also feel that 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 delves into this as well. Romans also tells us that we have a sense within ourselves of what is right and good and what is wrong. This we know the minute we feel our rights encroached upon.
Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness[unbridled lust, excess, licentiousness, lasciviousness, wantonness, outrageousness, shamelessness, insolence ]
, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
What is the fruit that God finds "good" and sweet and healthy to the body, those deeds listed in Gal. 5:22-23. We also find what good fruit looks like in 1 Corinthians 13 (look it up). Jesus also said in Matthew 22,
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. ... You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." (Matt. 22:37,39-40) Good fruit is characterized by love and how it is exemplified in your life. First of all do your actions honor God and second of all do your actions bless and show love to others? Then that my friend is good fruit right there. If not, we must look within ourselves and do some pruning or God will do it for us.
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
My final thought is this...
1John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.It's sort of a side bar but I feel it's important. I guess I've seen some bad fruit and I wanted to point it out. To me it seems to go against the very fundamental principals of doctrine and it leaves me scratching my head in wonder that anyone can fall for it's debase nature. Todd Bentley is not a prophet or an apostle (or whatever he's calling himself) from God. If you don't know who he is look him up on you-tube. From what I've observed he physically abuses people under the guise of the movement of the holy spirit and manipulates people into thinking he's got some sort of "new message" about an angel (read 2 Corinthians 11:14). All I can tell you is love is gentle and love is kind, it is peaceful and is self-controlled and none of these things are contained within the way that this man is practicing his ministry. Know the word of God and be diligent to seek after Him and Him alone and He will protect you from stumbling.
1Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
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