What the Tree Grows

"By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” 
Matthew 7:16 (NIV)

Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to get drawn in by someone who sounds right than to actually check whether they are right?

Jesus knows exactly how that works. In Matthew 7:16 He gives the church one of the most practical tests in the entire Sermon on the Mount: "By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?" He bookends the whole passage with that same phrase. By their fruit. He opens with it, closes with it, and means it.

The word recognize there is not casual knowing. In the Greek, it means full knowledge, traceable, and undeniable. Jesus is not saying you will have a gut feeling. He is saying you will be able to see the evidence clearly. And the evidence always shows up in two places: what they believe and how they live. A wolf can wear a wool coat, but he cannot grow one. You can wire plastic grapes to a thornbush, but the thornbush cannot actually produce them.

Before you finish the next book or sermon series you are in the middle of, spend ten minutes in Matthew or John and ask if the Jesus being described here is the same one I find in these pages? Not the feeling, the tone or the personality. The actual claims. Does this teacher talk about repentance the way Jesus does? About holiness? About the cost of following Him? The fruit tells you the root, and you can see the fruit without a theology degree.

The tree always grows what the seed was.

Prayer: Lord, give me eyes to see fruit and not just packaging. Help me love Your Word enough to test what I hear against it. Where I have been lazy about this, forgive me. I want to recognize truth the way You intended, clearly and without confusion. In Jesus' Name, Amen.