“Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:15-20
I’ve been unable to write this past week after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
I didn’t know him personally but am aware of his work and his faith… on a surface level.
After the many online reports of him being racist; homophobic; and a Nazi… and after hearing from the other side about his grace under pressure; his patience presenting his message; and his love for God, family and country… I spent the better part of last week watching his online videos where he’s debating; interviewing and being interviewed; and just interacting with other personalities in many different situations… and looking for any information if he ever cheated on his wife.
And what I saw, heard and read was a genuine gentleman… sharing with the world what he held dear to himself personally… in a public setting.
When he was shot, I flinched, I felt it as if it was one of my own siblings, and this came to mind… from Romans 8…
“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”
But that’s just me… that’s what I saw, and as we all have experienced, “2 different sets of eyes see 2 different sets things.”
As I watched Charlie and his “self control” in public, I wondered if I was actually his “brother in Christ” because he handled a few incidents with people in public… way different than I would have.
I examined my own “spiritual fruit” of “self-control”… and found it to be lacking, or missing, because I couldn’t identify it… as you would maybe an apple, a grape, or a tomato.
I asked one of my daughters if she saw patience in me, or if she thought I was patient, she said, “No. With the grand kids you are, but you aren’t with yourself, or in conversation, you kinda butt in.”
You, most likely, can show me the difference between an apple, a grape, and say, a tomato… if I placed all 3 in front of you, in their “fruit form”.
But… taking one step back, what if I just showed you an apple tree with no apples, a vine with no grapes, and a tomato stalk without tomatoes on it… could you identify them for me?
Or… taking another step back… what if I just showed you 3 seeds?
Could you identify for me which of those seeds was which??
Now… what about “this fruit”…
“But the fruit of the Spirit is…
love,
joy,
peace,
forbearance,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness
and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
Can you identify that fruit?
Can you identify that fruit… in others?
And the $64,000 dollar question is… “Can you identify that fruit in yourself?”
And the $1,000,000 dollar question is “What if you can’t identify that fruit in yourself, does that mean you’re “not saved”?
For me, my focus recently has been on my “self-control”.
And as I “try” to control myself, “myself” says, “No”
And it brings to mind the Apostle Paul who said, in Romans 7…
“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
So I looked at myself, and asked myself, “If you can’t see the fruit of self-control in yourself how do you think it looks to others… or to God himself?”
“In his book The Whole Christ, Sinclair B. Ferguson urges a “gospel logic” to the effect that “there is no assurance of faith that can be experienced apart from faith.” ~Derek Thomas/learn.ligonier.org
But… where does it say, “spiritual things are spiritually discerned,” ???
1 Corinthians 2:14,
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
When you get stuck on something, who do you call; ask; read up on; or in today’s world… do you watch a YouTube video, to help you figure it out and move your understanding forward?
For my spiritual questions I have my friend Paul; my Pastor Jim; and YouTube… there are two gentleman, both deceased, Bible teaching pastors, with very long running ministries, that I turn to for explanations of the spiritual experiences I am going through.
- Adrian Rogers of Love Worth Finding Ministries
- J. Vernon McGee of “The Bible Bus” five year study program.
I was exposed to these gentleman through VCY radio programs on my daily commute to work.
So as I was working out this article I settled on a J. Vernon McGee episode.
He took me all the way back to Gods beginning to show the immutable natural law set up by God concerning fruit, found in Genesis 1:11-13
“Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.”
Notice the law… “according to their kinds”.
We never compare apples to oranges… we have to compare apples to apples… right?
If you go looking for apples on a fig; lemon; or cherry tree, you will be sadly disappointed, and that’s no lie.
J. Vernon McGee walks us through the Bible touching on each aspect of growing a tree to produce it’s specific fruit.
From the root; to seedling; to being big enough to know it’s a tree yet not being mature enough to bear fruit just quite yet; and through “grafting”, the technique of using a hardier root stock to support a different variety, and explaining that how if those grafts are not taken care of eventually they age out and revert back to producing the original fruit the root was always intended to produce. And the need for pruning; watering and fertilizing to get an abundance of fruit.
Ok. I get all that. I understand the analogy. But I keep looking and looking at myself and I don’t think I see anything coming in!
Teddy Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
So when I compare my spiritual life with Charlie Kirk’s spiritual life, yeah, it steals away whatever joy I have because if it’s the same God we have, and only one Spirit, and only one Lord and savior Jesus Christ, should not my spiritual fruit at least match up, or line up, or be identifiable as being “christian in nature”, mirroring Galatians 5:22-26? I don’t believe I can even compare myself to my friends and teachers, Paul, Jim, J. Vernon, or Adrian… compared to them I’m still just a unidentifiable sprout.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Or, truthfully, am I just being “envious”?
“Bearing fruit, something that Jesus identifies as keeping His commandments (John15:10), is intimately related to abiding in Him. It is in the sphere of abiding in Christ and not apart from it that fruit emerges. There is only one cure for a lack of fruit in our Christian lives. It is to go back to Christ and enjoy (yes, enjoy) our union with Him.” https://learn.ligonier.org/articles/cure-lack-fruit-our-christian-lives
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.“
His WORD.
Gods Word… to me is like this new app I found that allows me to snap a picture of any plant in my yard and provide me with it’s identity… “friend or foe” kinda mentality, now that I have little grand kids running through the yard, I had to remove some “Burning Nettle” which I was able to identify because of past experiences… but what is interesting is that I am finding “weeds” that if I would let them grow to maturity are actually natural, native to Wisconsin wild flowers, with beautiful blooms.
We as human beings always want to live “by sight”.
“Unless I see it for myself I won’t believe it.”
Does that sound like you or just “Doubting Thomas?”
But we are to live “by faith”, trusting Him, getting to know Him, by reading His Word, and from time to time having that Word explained to us, so as to assuage our fear and anxiety of “not being enough”, “not producing enough,” “not being Christian enough,”… because we can not identify in ourselves evidences, or the fruit, of Him living through us.
Many people throughout history have put forth their Christian exterior to promote themselves in the world.
Most, over time, have been revealed to have been “false prophets”.
Charlie Kirk seemed to live out what he was prophesying; he seemed to love his wife, and her him; and it looked like his kids were happy to see him when they were caught on camera running up to him, and people close to him all have the same positive experience with the man.
Time will tell.
For some reason it hurts me that they shot him, that he’s gone. I am angry about that. I’m old enough and cynical enough to know that “anybody from any side could have done it” and “the lone gunman” schpeel just falls flat, even if that’s the case.
I think I’m mad at myself also. For not being “more informed”, “more knowledgeable about the United States Constitution” and other topics Charlie put forth.
I may not be able to “see” any fruit of the Spirit in myself this week but I sure can “see” my inadequacies in the kind of information that’s being tossed about… and being one that doesn’t “butt in” when I have no information on a specific topic… I will be keeping my mouth shut as to those things that I know nothing about… for now.
And for my comfort, I can lean on His Word, that explains, things grow as God causes them to grow, in His, and their time, “according to their kind.”
The Emerging Man writing to Encourage, Equip & Engage!
theemergingman.com 