Bad Apples
Hello Saints,
Almost everyday, while driving down the same road into Guelph, I pass a large apple orchard on the left. For several months now I have watched these well manicured trees blossom and produce fruit. From flowering branches to bright red apples being picked off for roadside sale, it has been a thing of beauty to behold how God has given that tree the ability to produce food for His most prized creation…us! We just had to have the apples that we have seen through to fruition – from seed to harvest. Wow! They were expensive! The most we’ve ever paid for apples with the guarantee that they were picked the same day we purchased them. (I don’t know if that really made a difference in taste, but it was the only time we bought them knowing we could get them at the market for less than half the price.) Now after a month or so of watching people stop to buy these apples, one day I drove by and noticed all the remaining apples in the orchard were off the trees and laying on the ground. Were they going to collect them to make cider? What was the reason these beautiful red apples were just discarded? Over a month later now, with several frosts, and the apples are still laying on the ground rotting. How sad! I used to go, in my younger years, collecting apples off the ground of peoples houses to make apple cider wine. Even a fallen apple, half rotten, worms and all, could be pressed into juice and fermented into wine. But these particular apples are just left to rot. I will have to stop one day and ask the keeper of the orchard the reason for this decision.
Of course, for me there is a spiritual application from this vivid illustration. Until I speak with the orchardist, the view for me is that some apples were good enough for noble use to be sold, while others did not meet the standard and were discarded. No one really knows till the harvest time what each particular apple will turn out to be. It goes through its entire life cycle like all the other apples, only to be labeled a “bad apple” at the end of the season. I don’t know about you, but I am reminded of the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13 (verses 24-43). This parable is for me a picture of the church, which is in the world. In every church there is true wheat planted by Christ and there are weeds sown by the enemy. It should be apparent which is which…should it not?! But often it is not! Is it possible to identify true followers of Jesus (wheat) from false Christians (weeds)? Is it even our job to do so? Jesus said that false prophets would be easy to identify…by their fruit (Matt. 7:15-20). John identified deceivers in the church (2John 1:7); Paul identified false teachers (1Tim. 4:1-3). But is there a distinct way to identify a true Christian from a false one? It seems to be a topic that comes up repeatedly. Many of us make judgments about certain people that, “they can’t be a Christian”, judging them by their fruit. But, in reality, external fruit is not a good measure of Christianity. There are many, many people of differing faiths who are more loving, more charitable, more kind, more generous, more serving, more sacrificial etc. There are people of other faiths, even false Christian faiths that worship more passionately, are devoted to their religion more faithfully, committed to serving more enthusiastically, etc. In a nutshell, externally, it is virtually impossible to identify a true follower of Jesus - It is not by their external works. I have known many people who seemed to be wonderful Christians, passionate about the Lord and even doing all the “right Christian things” but ultimately who fell away from the faith. The parable really is true – we won’t really know till the end. And we should probably leave the judging to Jesus. But we have orders from God to deal with people in the church who are divisive and a threat to the health of the body. So, we do our best by the leading of Holy Spirit to remove those who want to bring harm to the church of Jesus Christ.
All this being said, there are a few ways of somewhat gauging a Christian’s genuineness. The first is a person must possess Holy Spirit – for if one does not have the Spirit of Christ, one is not of Him (Rom. 8:9). In other words, that person must have been born again, been made new by the Spirit of God. This is an internal work of God on a person to give them a new heart. Out of that life transforming experience comes a true desire to worship from the heart, the One who gave us new life. Out of that new heart comes a desire to live in newness of life, turning from sin to serve the living God. That should result in a whole new way of living, speaking, acting, desiring, etc. There is a drastic change that takes place in a person’s heart whereby the Spirit of God, who has now placed us in Christ, becomes Lord of our life and so changes the way we think that it is evidenced in our new affections – namely to love and please God with our whole being (Mark 12:30). Genuine love for God (1Peter 1:8) and a desire to truly worship Him in Spirit and truth (John 4:23) is really the first mark of a true Christian.
The Spirit of God pours God’s love into our heart so we can love God and love others, especially fellow believers. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). The second test of true saving faith, true Christian conversion, is a genuine, God-given love for the people of God, the Church of Jesus Christ. This seemed to be the litmus test for the early church (1John 3:14, 4:20; 1Pet. 1:22, 2:17).
The third test for being a true follower of Jesus is a desire to obey Jesus as Lord, “You are truly my disciples if you keep obeying my teachings” (John 8:31; 2John 1:9). A continued obedience to the words of Jesus, not just some of them, but all of His 75 Kingdom commands; not just when we feel like it, sometimes, but always a desire to please our Master. As Jesus asked “Why do you call me Lord and do not do what I say”(Luke 6:46).
What are the marks of a good apple that will be used to bring glory to the Keeper of the orchard? Love for the orchardist, love for the other apples who belong to the orchardist, and obedience to do what the orchardist says to do. All of this stems from being given a new heart by the Spirit of God. If you don’t have these marks of a true follower of Jesus, cry out to God to make you a new creation by His Spirit. For us who personally know the Orchardist, maybe we should leave judging whether an apple is good or bad up to the Orchard Keeper till harvest day.
Peace and Joy
"Advancing the Kingdom of God by releasing Spirit-filled followers to serve Jesus in freedom and joy."
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