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Day 17: Fruit not fruit loops

I remember as a child the atmosphere of my Mamaw Viers’ home. The best way I can describe it is that it was a warm, country smelling, and safe feeling place. Just because it felt safe, doesn’t mean discipline didn’t happen at that place. No, that’s where I learned to pick my own switch. I remember one time bringing back a small tree limb with at least five different branches full of foliage I thought would catch the wind and help me out on the pain part. Well, Mamaw just removed all the foliage in one fell swoop of her hand. It made the most terrifying sound that still rings in my ears when I think back. Needless to say, from that day on I found better switches that were only going to connect on one spot instead of five. 


When you are young, you think that the grownups love to hand out punishment, but the older you get the more you realize it wasn’t for their enjoyment, but it was for your benefits. My Mamaw wanted me to bear fruit, not be a fruit loop. She, and my parents, wanted to make sure that I understood the consequences of my actions in the safety and love of their homes before I was too old to learn them in the realm of adulthood where the stakes are much higher. I can testify that Hebrews 12 is true.


Hebrews 12:11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

I am thankful that I was brought up in a way where the people around me wanted to see me reach my potential. Though sometimes it was painful, I earned and learned from every lesson. They wanted me to bear fruit, not be a fruit loop. 

                  

What do I mean by that? Well, fruit is healthy for you and fruit loops are not. Fruit loops fall into my “Fake fruit” category. Well, to be honest they do not pretend that the fruit loops are fruit, but they do try to pretend that they are a “part of a balanced breakfast.” We all know that breakfast would be much better without the fruit loops. Look at their ingredients:


Cereals (60%)(maize flour, wheat flour, oat flour), sugar, vegetable oil, salt, natural colors (paprika extract, carmine, curcumin, vegetable carbon, copper chlorophyll), minerals (iron, zinc oxide), vitamins (niacin, vitamin B6, riboflavin, folate), natural flavors (orange, lemon, lime).


I mean, that seems like a lot of unhealthy things. 

                  

Our Made for More crew will undoubtedly love this analogy, but it is a roundabout way of challenging us to bear healthy fruit, not imitation fruit. Sometimes we may fall into the habit of trying to look fruitful instead of being fruitful in our faith. Sometimes we get in the habit of trying to dress up the outside that everyone sees so that people think we have it all together. Remember in 1 Samuel what God said to Samuel when he thought that David’s brother Eliab would be God’s choice?


1 Samuel 16: 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

As we near the end of our prayer and fasting time, let us examine our hearts and ask God to move and to work and to restore or revive us so that what people see on the outside lines up with what is on the inside. Let us be authentic fruit, not the processed sugar-coated chlorophyll. Or friends and neighbors can get all the processed fake stuff from the world, let their interactions with us be real, spiritually nutritious, and deep that they are uplifted every time they interact with us! 

                  

In closing, I love grapes. Well, if they don’t have seeds in them. Even as a child I couldn’t turn down a nice cluster of them. In my Mamaw’s house she used to have these beautiful fruit bowls with the healthiest looking fruit you could ever find. One day I grabbed the grape cluster and pulled off a grape and it made the strangest sound. “Pop!” In my adolescent mind I ignored it and threw it in my mouth. I found myself eating a nasty rubber fake grape. It wasn’t fruit… It was fake. How heartbreaking.

                  

How much more damaging is it when Christians offer faux Christianity? Brendan Manning, author of ‘The Ragamuffin Gospel’ gave us one of the best contemporary Christianity assessments in a quote that is contributed to him. It was used in the opening line of a DC Talk song from the 90’s called ‘What if I Stumble.’


“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”


The challenge today is this: let the Gospel be so real in our lives that the only outcome is that we bear fruit. Prayer, scripture reading, worship, and fellowship are the garden of the fruit of the Spirit. Let us bear fruit, not fruit loops. 

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