²⁰ Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions…

Hey y’all,

I was scrolling through my phone trying to make space by deleting old pictures and notes and I came across a picture that brought back a memory that inspired me today.

It was a picture of my summer Cuba vacation. On our last night we ( I went with a large group of friends) had booked an a la carte dinner at one of the resorts “fancy” restaurants. Now I may be biased, but the food in Cuba ( on the resort anyway…. )(I have had really good food OFF of the resort) is not good, so presentation is everything! The food ( I had ordered a shrimp dish) was brought out and it looked amazing.  But oh dear….. when I bit into a piece of the shrimp… I instantly pulled out my napkin and deposited the shrimp into it. It was sooooooooo bad guys. Such a disappointment!

That small moment led me to the thought, “Don’t be a rotten apple! Meaning don’t put on the facade of being  nice and kind and truthful but really on the inside you are rotten and leave a bad taste in peoples mouths.

As a Christian, we are called to live a life that honours God and part of doing that is to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. We need to be living evidence that the fruit of spirit is at hand in our lives.

The fruit of the spirit laid out for us in the book Galatians 5:22-23

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

In order to not be a “rotten apple” your inside has got to match your outside. If outside is beautiful and shiny and appealing, but inside is moldy or rotten, aren’t you disappointed?  Noting is worse than cutting into an apple you  are anticipating eating, only to find out that it is not edible !

Same goes for yourself! If your outside is so beautiful, but your core is rotten, what’s the point of calling yourself a Christian? That’s just giving people the wrong opinion of Christians!

Let your fruits match your tree. If you water a tree and nurture it, it will grow and produce good fruit . But if you neglect it and leave it by the wayside, what you produce will be less than stellar. If you as a Christian take pride in your relationship, you will do things to help it grow, spending time in prayer and reading the word of God. But if you neglect your relationship with God, you can only expect to reap what you have sown. Nothing produces nothing right?

Now some of these fruits are not easy to live by. I still struggle with patience sometimes. But part of being a Christian is admitting your faults and turning them over to your creator to help you navigate through them!

Don’t be a rotten apple folks! Be as shiny and good on the inside as you are on the outside!

I just want to leave the song, “Where the Spirit is” by Kirk Franklin with you today.

Love Y’all
Peace and Blessings!
xoxo