Good Fruit

"A good tree doesn't produce bad fruit; on the other hand, a bad tree does not produce good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs aren't gathered from thorn bushes, or grapes picked from a bramble bush. A good man produces good out of a good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. 

Luke 6:43-45

I grew up in a small town and both my grandmother home and our home had fruit trees. Our fruit trees were the best. I remember the day we moved to our home, the previous owners had a vegetable garden as well as many fruit trees. My parents had five children at the time and did not care for a vegetable garden but kept the fruit trees.

My mother would tend the fruit trees, I should say, the peach and apricot trees, the rest were left to their own devices. In all we had: fig, peach, apricot, plum, Apple and persimmon. The peaches were large, their name was Yellow Mundy. They were the juiciest peach I had, to date, ever tasted. Conversely the apples were the pitts. None of us liked to eat the apples, they were small, hard and tasteless. For a time we had a pet sheep and I don't think Barbie liked them either.

This parable reminds me of the peach and apple trees. There is no way you could say the peach tree was bad, it was also good to play in and camp under. Just the same, looking at the apple tree, you could tell the poor thing was never going to produce good fruit.

Now, Jesus is saying we are like fruit trees. People can look at us and tell what we are: good or bad producers of fruit. We might convince ourselves we are good, the story in our heads might tells us what a hero we are but what do others see?

Scripture tells us to taste and see that the Lord is good. He is compared to fruit. Could we wear a sign that said: 'taste and see, I am good!' I would not want to wear one, but we all wear an invisible sign. Our sign either says: 'Go away!' Or 'Come on in!'

Fruit comes out of our heart. What lives in our heart? If you want good fruit, check the storehouse.