“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down (…)” Matthew 7:19

We are many to love fruit, not just because of their attractive outward appearance but also for their tastes and mainly because of benefits associated with them. As a result of our interest for fruit, we often end up planting trees that produce them in our compounds. With legitimate impatience, we then look forward to the appropriate season to harvest the fruit of our labour, the fruit of the tree. Let’s imagine that, unlike other trees heavily loaded with fruit, ours is beautifying the environment with green and abundant shadow but has no fruit to offer! We shall be immensely disappointed to the point of cutting it out of impatience after a few years.

That the tree is unable to yield fruit will have taken its life, for if we love the shadow of the tree especially in times of heat, there is no doubt our preference goes to its fruit.

In the likeness of the tree, our creator equally expects us not only to bear fruit but mainly to bear good ones, fruit that will testify to our Christian identity and make our filiation known to the world.

Here is a selection of biblical examples that can inspire us: Job made God known to the world by continuing praising him even when he lost everything including his health; David revealed God by displaying fear for God throughout his life by making a point of repenting from his wrongdoings. That earned him the attribute of Man “after God’s heart”. Abraham unveiled God to the world through his faith and obedience to him. He trusted God so much that he left his homeland upon God’s request and headed to a destination he knew nothing about, only having God and his faith in Him as unique compass. Later, he touched God’s heart by consenting to sacrifice Isaac, the son of the promise. Moses, on his part, made his heavenly father known through his kindness, his legendary patience (Numbers 13:3) and his leadership which is still inspiring many today.

What fruit do you bear and what testimony will you leave to the posterity? God can still change you and make your story totally different.