WE ARE KNOWN BY THE FRUIT WE PRODUCE

Proclamation:

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.  Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.  People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers."  Luke 6:43-44 (NIV)

Explanation:

Luke, the physician traveling companion of the Apostle Paul, recorded these words which Jesus spoke in His Sermon on the Mount to His disciples, and to the large crowd which had gathered around them, good trees do not bear bad fruit, and bad trees do not bear good fruit.  The fruit which is produced is determined by the tree type.

Application:

In this case humans are like trees, you can determine the type of person that they are by the type of fruit which they produce. (Jeremiah 17:10 and Matthew 7:17-19)  Good people do good things and produce good fruit.  Evil people will not do good and the fruit which they produce will not be good.  We will get a much better picture of a person by examining the fruit which they produce.  It will be more accurate to determine if a person is good by looking at the fruit which they produce rather than by listening to the words that they speak.  What we do is more representative of who we really are than what we say.  Our actions, and our fruit, speak louder for us than our words.