GOOD TREE, BAD TREE

Perhaps the Good Tree, Bad Tree parable is like the Love Your Enemies issue in yesterday’s Journal entry. Maybe the Good Tree, Bad Tree in the parable
(Luke 6:43-45; Matthew 7:15-20) are the same tree… or the same person. Luke 6:45: “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.” The same heart.

The Bad Tree within us cannot produce Good Fruit and the Good Tree within us cannot produce Bad Fruit. It is not unlike ‘enemies and persecutors’ that are within us. The negative must be removed as much as possible. Fortunately, the Lord promises to repair and prune our Tree: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.” (Gospel of John 15)

It is just imperative that we see the Tree as personal and the potential for both Good and Bad exist. The love of Jesus will remove bad branches.

“Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.” Jesus