A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. (ESV)

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. (NIV)

Dive Deeper:

Imagine planting an apple seed in your garden. After years of watering and care, it finally blossoms. You go out to collect its fruit…but to your surprise, find oranges scattered on the ground and hanging from the tree's branches.

Did your apple tree somehow start growing oranges? Or did you plant the wrong seed from the start? The answer is clear.

An apple tree can’t grow oranges, and an orange tree can’t grow apples. 

It sounds simple, but maybe we’ve missed it when it comes to ourselves…do we know what is planted in us?

We are all diseased. Not just sick in need of a doctor…dead and in need of resurrection. Completely and utterly incapable of good. (Romans 3:10-12) Apart from God, that is. 

We are rotten to the roots. To bear fruit on your own is to be capable of bearing only bad fruit. It would take an actual miracle for us to produce even a single piece of good fruit.

And that’s exactly what the gospel is—a miracle. If you are in Christ, Jesus has changed everything. You have been made new. Disease has been exchanged for health—death for life.

In this week’s verse, Jesus warns us against false prophets, saying that we will recognize them by their fruit. But it’s not just a test for others; it’s also a mirror for us. We are all known by our fruits, because the fruit reveals what’s on the inside. Flesh or Spirit. Disease or Health. Apples or oranges.

You may never be able to bear good fruit on your own, but in Christ you have been made new. He alone has the power “to change an apple tree into an orange tree.” To turn a diseased tree into a healthy one. On its own, a tree can only remain how it is. So remain in Christ, and let Him make you new. 

The Spirit cannot bear destruction, and the flesh cannot bear life. It’s that simple…and that serious.

You are no longer your own, and neither is your good fruit. 

So, bear good fruit through Him who has healed you, and be known by it.

Written by Blake Stanley