Good Fruit

“Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.”
Matthew 7:17-18

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
The Lord says to us in verse 20:

“…by their fruits, you will know them.”

So we have got to stop telling people, all the time, that we love them and maybe start showing them that we love them. I remember looking at a cartoon in a magazine many years ago, I have never forgotten it - there was a drawing of a little boy holding a begging bowl and asking the minister who was standing, preaching to him with a big black Bible and a big fat stomach, “Sir, will there be food in Heaven?”

You and I have got to put our money where our mouth is sometimes, don’t we? Some of us have short arms and long pockets.

It is not about the quantity by the way - It is about the quality of the fruit. I had an orchard, a fruit orchard, on the farm years ago and we had all types of fruit in that orchard. Some of those trees bore a lot of fruit but there was one small little plum tree - It produced the sweetest, most delicious plums in the whole orchard, I will never forget it. The juice was sweet, the flesh was blood-red and it was delightful to the taste.

A few years ago a very dear friend of mine drove, in a motorcar with his friend, 600km from Johannesburg to the farm. He got out of the car and He said, “I want to pray over you.” He anointed me with oil and prayed over me just before a major meeting we were having on the farm. Then he got back in the car and drove 600km back home. Now that is fruit I will never forget.

Another time, a young man and a few students from his church got in an aeroplane in Cape Town and flew all the way to Durban, hired a motorcar and drove up to the farm. He came and spent 15 minutes with me, that was all. I was going through one of the darkest times of my life and he just loved and prayed for me - I have never forgotten that. This is the fruit that you and I must produce.

When Jill and I first arrived on the farm, we had built that little mud and wattle house... a very rich man from Greytown came to visit us one Sunday afternoon. He sat in our little one-roomed house. After we had given him a cup of tea, my wife Jill came out and said, “We want to just give you half a bag of potatoes” - just as a gift. The man got quite emotional, he said, “I have not been given a gift for a long time.” It touched his heart. It's not the quantity, it is the quality and it's the heart!

Go and do so today. Jesus bless you as you produce good fruit.
Goodbye.