You will know them by their fruit

Matthew 7:15-20. Jesus said about his followers, that you would know them by their fruits. Beware of false teachers who are like wolves in sheeps clothings.

I spend too much time watching short videos on Youtube and posts on X formerly Twitter. The AI evaluates what I look at and for how long to create an algorythm based on my interests. One of my interests are posts about God, in particular the signs of the end times and what it truely means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. And I have to admit that I am more confused now than I was a year ago. My parents, who are still alive and kicking, just not as fast and as high as they used to, bought me a daily devotional. No, no, no, not a simple devotional that you can read in a minute or two but one with homework. Well, I am behind about three weeks. I got stuck on three parts. Matthew 7:21 where Jesus says that not everyone that calls me Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Matther 7:13 ‘small is the gate and narrow is the way…’ and Matthew 7:15 …’you will know them by their fruits’… From Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

Stressing the importance of chosing the true path of a relationship with Jesus and not falling into the trap of a false relationship with religion. Like the Pharasees in the bible, who prided themselves on a religious cerimony and rituals. You see samples of it all the time. A mob gang member performing the Catholic cross just before or after eliminating a rival gang member, claimimg to be Catholic yet still murdering a snitch or witness? How about the Westbourough Baptist church when they spew such hatred toward someone who was gay or a veterans funeral service because they killed in war? Everyone can agree that the hooded members of the Klu Klux Klan, a.k.a. the KKK are filled with hate in their hearts because someone has a darker skin color than them as do the opposite Black Panthers who have hate in their hearts for the ‘white people’. They have hate in their hearts, not the same as disagreeing with someones opinion, but out right hate.

Recently, Pope Francis passed away, the leader of the world wide Catholic church, the so called apostolic successor to Peter of the New Testament of the Holy Bible, the apostle that Jesus renamed ‘the Rock’, not to be confused with the wrestler ‘The Rock’ a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson. Well, I could not see the Holy Spirit working within Pope Francis, especially when he told a child that his athiest father who had just recently passed away would be in heaven waiting for him, the child. That is in opposition to Christian doctrine where Jesus says ‘I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father but thru me” John 14:6. Clearly, an athiest who does not believe in Jesus and the fact that he died on the cross and arose from the dead 3 days later and had not accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour would NOT be in heaven awaiting the arrival of that mans child. There are plenty of other examples of Pope Francis and his dangerous interpretations of the Bible, but history is replete with evil Popes that mislead millions away from Jesus, just like a wolf in sheeps clothing. I can not say that all Catholics are wrong, but I can say that many Catholics worldwide are being lead away from a personal relationship with Jesus. If I sin, I don’t need to confess to a preist for absolution and say 10 ‘Hail Mary’s’ praying to Christs earthly mother, but to pray directly to Jesus, bypassing the preist. The church’s priest is supposed to help give guidance and answer questions, not determine what you must do for absolution. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will not only lead the new Pope, but every person world wide, Catholic or not into a true relationship with Jesus Christ who is no longer on the cross.

And ‘you will knowthem by their fruits’. Matt 7:16 Here, Jesus is using real world example to a spiritual manifestation. A thornbush does not produce grapes and you can’t grow figs on a thistle. Here, Jesus is talking about the manifestation of the spirit. He knew that soon, He would be gone and the Holy Spirit would be filling the hearts of men and women, He was preparing them to look at a persons true character. Can one see evidence of a changed heart. If the Holy Spirit is living inside you, there will be evidence in that persons character. Otherwise, that person may just be a phony, a fake. Someone who only has a christianlike facade, but behind the facade, there is nothing. They may actually think they are christians as they will be suprised when Jesus looks at them on judgement day, and says “depart from me, you that practice lawlessness” and a host of angels will pick them up and throw them in the pit of everlasting fire where there is crying and gnashing of teeth.

You all know what a “Lazyboy” recliner is. Imagine you going into the store and looking at a recliner. I see a brown leather recliner. I look at it from the front, then walk around it. I touch it to feel the leather. The salesman come and tells me how it was made, how the leather was sourced and the special stitching used in the factory to give the seams strength. He further explains the cushioning material and how the design of the chair gives added support to the lumbar region of the back. The handle that controls the reclining feature is easy to reach and maneuver. He then explains that it is free. Someone already came in and paid for it in my name, all I have to do is accept it. So I take it home and never sit in it. Do I really ‘know’ how comfortable it is? I put it in my Front room, I invite my family and friends to come and see my new chair, but I don’t let anyone sit in it. I haven’t even sat in it. So, do I really ‘know’ how comfortable that chair is? Or am I a fake, a phony? We all agree that in order to know how comfortable that chair is, I need to sit in it. Only by sitting in it can I then, with conviction share how comfortable that chair is. Not only is it comfortable, but it actually relaxes and refreshes me after a long day at work. If I don’t sit in it, I get no benefit of it. I don’t truly ‘know’ that chair.

This may be a poor example of knowing Jesus Christ, but I think you start to get a better understanding. If you are in a real relationship with the son of God, the person that came to earth, became human by being born from a woman and lived a live so he could experience what it is to be human, to be tempted and threatened and then eventually falsly convicted and murdered and humiliated just so he could pay the price to save us from the penalty of our crimes against God the Father then you want to share it. You want to tell as many people as you can that they, too, can have their sins against God forgiven.

I see warnings on Youtube. people claiming to see the signs of the end times. It is unmistakable that, everyday we are one day closer to the rapture, a time explained in Revelation where Jesus will have his ‘second’ coming. Where every knee will bow and everyone will have to confess that Jesus is Lord, even those that didn’t believe before, even those that are evildoers at heart will have to admit that Jesus is Lord. By that time, it will be too late to meet Jesus as he is coming triumphantly back to earth to claim what is his. Actually, everything is his and he will be the judge, jury and executioner of what is his.

As I get older, I realize I have become a pack-rat, a horder. It is amazing how much junk I have paid for and accumulated. Now that my kids are moved out and my wife and I are preplanning our retirement, It is tme to clean house. I have started to go thru my house and donate or outright toss out the junk I no longer need, want or use. Some items are easy to throw away, others are harder. Yet some items still have value, just not to my wife or myself anymore so we give the option to our kids if they want it, if not we donate it to Goodwill or ARC (another organization that sells items and uses the money to help people with disabilities). But what if you only had two choices; Keep or throw in the incinerator, a furnace so hot, it consumes an item and burns so hot that even the ash is consumed by fire. So you look and only those items that have your special seal on it is kept and all the rest, no matter how good or bad it is, gets put in the incinerator.

Well, that is what happens in the spirit world. Only those with the seal of the Holy Spirit will be taken to heaven, and everything else will be sent to the insinerator, but this furnace is too terrible to think of. There is no end for those thrown in it

No one knows the day or the hour of the second comming of Christ. Only God the Father knows. But how long is God going to wait when we, his creation, keeps kicking him out of our schools, our courts, our churches and our hearts? How much more evil must he witness before he says ‘ I had to destroy them once but promised I wouldn’t destroy them with a flood again, now I have no choice but to consume all evil with fire?

So this is what keeps me up at night, I have the chair, I know about the chair, I have told others about the chair and I have invited others to come and see the chair, but have I sat in the chair? What are my fruits? I have left the church because it became too ritualistic and while what was preached is true, I did not feel the authotity of the Holy Spirit. The last few churches did not seem to have the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Many years ago, my wife and I volunteered to go on several ‘Short Term Missions Trips’ the first two were in Myanmar, formerly Burma. Situated between India and China, this country is heavily influenced by both countries but has a history of its own. This country is primarily Buddhist and is a dictatorship run by 5 very powerful generals. While there sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to people bereft of spiritual and physical hope, my wife and I were in a home (which felt like a hut from the set of Gilligans Island with teak wood framing and a thatch walls and tin roof) we had shared with a group of about a dozen people. And this one person, and elderly woman with skin like leather and a history of hard work in her face and a continance of no hope in her heart accepted Jesus into her heart. And after We led her thru the prayer where she accepted, I kid you not, even as I write this today, I get emotional at the fact that I saw the Holy Spirit that day. Her whole continance changed, her face glowed and she was filled with hope and joy. That kind of change could only be from the Holy Spirit, and when you have witnessed the power of him, the power of Jesus and the acceptance of God himself, you crave it. You need it and you can feel him influencing your life. So when you have stepped away from church because you did not feel the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit and you have gone awhile without being recharged, you feel empty inside.

For many years, there were two competing companies thatproduced batteries. Duracell and Energizer. Now between the two, it was 6 of one or half a dozen with the other. They both performed pretty much the same. But Eveready Energizer had a comercial that spotlighted the bunny. That stupid marching childrens toy of a pink bunny pounding away at a drum we called the Eveready bunny, powered by an Eveready battery that ‘keeps going and going and…’. Well, the Holy Spirit is like the battery that keeps you going and going and…

So this note, this post is written by me, for me. I think I have been told by the Holy Spirit what I must do. I must, with his help, find a church (group of people, not a building) that can not only help recharge me but also benefit from my talents and gifts. If this post helps you in any way, then this is one of my fruits.