Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 6 verses 43 through 45:
43 “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; 44for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
Maya Angelou used to say, “The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
The words coming out of the mouth really ought to be enough to tell us what a kind of person it is who is in front of us. Are they cruel, crude, belittling, demeaning, lying, and full of contempt? That really ought to be enough for us to know who they are.
But our minds make all kinds of excuses and justifications usually because the other person is handsome, or powerful, or popular, or in our same party, or of our own ideology. So we’re willing to lie to ourselves in order to give them a pass. We’ll sell out all our own personal values to make an excuse for someone else. This is rampant in relationships, business, in politics. We keep disrespecting ourselves in order to stay in a bad relationship. We keep deceiving ourselves into believing grapes will sprout from the bramble bush. No, thorns come from a bramble bush; and when they cut it hurts.
Jesus said, “Judge a tree by its fruit.” That should tell us everything we need to know about the tree. And when the tree tells us, we really ought to believe it.
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