Fruitful Living

I once heard of a man who loved experimenting in his garden. His crowning achievement was a tree he'd pieced together. Part plum, part apricot, part peach, and part prune-it was the craziest mixed-up tree you ever saw. Oh, it was alive. It grew fine. The leaves were there. But it never did bear any fruit. John the Baptist noticed the same problem in the lives of many of his Jewish followers. You identify a tree by the fruit it produces, John said-and a tree that doesn't produce is worth nothing at all. John was chastising the Jews for believing their DNA- their "root stock" was enough to please God. It wasn't enough to be sons of Abraham, he said. In the same respect, it isn't enough to call ourselves Christians. We must live like Christians. "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven," Jesus once said, speaking of the barren lives of many, "but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). If we call ourselves Christians, then our lives should be unmistakably and obviously Christlike. (From :"Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World")