I love trees, especially presently productive fruit trees in my home orchard, with the back drop of high gum trees. I do not spurn the more majestic grand old trees growing in fertile well-watered conditions, or the brave scrubby ones, found so often in the dryer parts of Australia. For the most part, all are growing just as God designed them to, in the geographic and climatic conditions for which they are most suited. However it is true, that if we have planted and nurtured the tree, that after a while of giving them a chance to ‘do their thing’, if they fail, we chop them out, and replace them with one, that is pleasingly healthy and productive. I imagine all of us have seen large trees that have come down in a storm, revealing a rotten core, or inadequate base of roots, revealing they had not actually been the ‘good’ tree we had supposed.
Matthew 12: 35 “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. I note the teaching of Jesus as He used the analogy of good and bad trees to teach about the spiritual health of a person being manifested by their words and actions. V 33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.” Matthew 7: 16 – 19 “You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Jesus certainly told the Priests and others from the Jewish religious establishment, that because of their hypocritical, evil hearts, no good could come from them; Matthew 12: 34 “Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” The words of Jesus are spoken to every person and are sobering, when contemplated, for each of us personally. V36, 37 “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgement. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
As ever, to come to Jesus in repentant, teachable and humble prayer is the powerful answer for any sin, situation or perplexity that we personally may have and so much more in our walk with God. Romans 8: 26, 27 “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” It is the sad fact, that all of us who have lived on earth, have sinned and at times produced bad words and deeds, but thanks be to God, it is not inevitable that we will be cut down and destroyed in the judgement that Jesus spoke about. V 1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
Further good news for each of us who walk with Jesus, in love, Colossians 3: 2 “Set your mind on things above, not on things on earth.” In many of his follow up letters to the believers in different places, Paul wrote of the type of attributes the Holy Spirit, would foster in them/us; and so he does again in Colossians 3: 12 – 15 “Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.”