“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act….A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit….Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” Matthew 7:15-20 (NLT)
While driving to work in Blairstown, a bird flashed across the road in front of me. Since I’ve been a “birder” from childhood, I immediately recognized it–a Blue Jay, easily identified by the shape of it’s head, size, flight pattern, and of course, its bright blue color. All these things are Field Marks, and anyone who watches birds learns early on to spot them.
I’ve always enjoyed bird-watching. I love how easy it sometimes is to identify the different birds. I just remember the different patterns, which ones have wing bars or striped tail feathers, what makes a Baltimore Oriole distinct from an American Redstart. But, sometimes it’s not so easy. In the fall and spring, a group of birds known as warblers change from their usual colors to muted, less distinct patterns. Birds that were easy to tell apart in the summer, now are all but indistinguishable from one another.
Thankfully, there are tons of books available to help identify all these seemingly identical little birds. Even these confusing warblers have distinct Field Marks. If you’re carefully observant, you can learn to tell them apart.
As a child, my mother would make my lunch for me to take to school each day. The plain brown bag always contained the same things: a sandwich, two cookies, and a piece of fruit. Sometimes it was an orange or a pear, but most often the fruit I found in my bag was an apple. I loved the small, round Macintosh apples, crisp and flavorful. But sometimes I got a Red Delicious. Those days were disappointing. Through years of eating them, I found that Red Delicious apples were more often than not, grainy textured and flavorless. They were all for “show”—pretty to look at, but not very good eating. Their label—“Delicious”– was a lie; they rarely lived up to their name. They may have had the outward appearance of a lovely apple, but inwardly they were anything but.
“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear… hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division…and other sins like these.” Galatians 5: 19-21a (NLT)
So often though I claim to be a Christian, I find myself doing things which deny Jesus. My behavior is contrary to what I claim about myself. I may make all the right “show” of faith–attending church service regularly, saying all the right words—but, sometimes my actions just don’t line up with those words. I’m like the perfect Red Delicious apple, shiny and appealing on the outside, but inside mealy and tasteless. Others may be hurt by my actions; dissension and disagreement follow me. My fruit is bad.
“A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” Luke 6: 45 (NLT)
Bad fruit is a symptom of disease–the sickness of my heart turned away from God. Hostility, anger, and selfishness are all signs of a broken relationship with Jesus. When my heart is not right, I can’t produce good fruit. I may be trying to “be a good person”, but that just doesn’t work. I might put on an outward show of good works, but without a clean, forgiven heart the true good fruit just won’t grow. My inner brokenness will always show through my outward appearance.
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5: 23-24a (NLT)
If I’m self-aware–if my heart isn’t hardened–I can recognize my brokenness, weakness, and separateness. I cry out for help to the only one who can really make a difference. At the point when I turned to Jesus to save me and help me, the Holy Spirit came into my heart and got to work. Now I am not the same person I was before. Outward evidence of the inward change has started to grow in my life. I’ve started to bear fruit for Jesus, and since my heart is truly changed, it’s good fruit.
The fruit of the Spirit marks Christians as different—as followers of Jesus. The way we live…whether we are truly committed to Jesus or just having the outward appearance of obedience…matters to God and to the world. If we truly care about Jesus then we can’t go on living a life that looks like the rest of the world. The Holy Spirit living in us changes us, in deep fundamental ways, and the fruit of the Spirit are the Field Marks by which we can be truly identified.
The View from Mt. Hope 