RISE
Day Forty-eight – Today is day Forty-eight. How is your transformation going? Have you moved forward? Do you feel closer to God and compelled toward great or fuller believe and practice? As we have said all along, the key to transformation is repentance, which literally means to “change your mind.” Yet, that is not all we must change. Paul perhaps said it best when he talked about the “fruits of repentance.” Think about that image for a moment.
Fruits of repentance means that repentance itself is seed and from it emanates a natural growth that has the maturity and health to bring forth ripe fruit. Now, if you know anything about fruit trees then you know that most of them require several years to reach the point at which they will bear fruit. They have to be mature and healthy. When such is the case then fruit will come. Until recently our house in Florida was blessed with one of the greatest pink grapefruit trees you could imagine. It produced grapefruit prolifically and prodigiously. Furthermore, the fruit was just the swetest fruit you would ever want to taste. No store-bought fruit could come close.
About two years ago, however, we began to notice that things were off about the tree. Its fruit was smaller, less abundant and some of the branches were not even producing leaves. Some of the fruit you tried to eat was dry, like someone sucked all the juice and tasteless. We fertilized as usual and even had the tree checked out by someone who would know what was happening. In the end, it died, we think, from the greening, a disease that afflicts Florida citrus.
When the tree started to die the first thing we noticed was lack of fruit. So, what is you fruit and what does it say about your health. Make a list. What fruits are you now producing for Christ. If you spiritual work were a fruit basket, would an artist want to paint it or would we just wonder, “Where is it?” What do your fruits look like? Today is day Forty-eight. Today you are a fruit inspector.
