For Mothers Day we got some things for Cheryl for the garden. She loves to garden outside — and I love to go out and walk through the garden with her for 5 minutes before I go inside to read! The other day we had just finished looking at her raised beds with the corn and squash and peppers, and we had gone over to the strawberry patch, where there are a thousand blooms, and some little green strawberries! But while we were looking, all of the sudden Cheryl saw something that wasn’t right, and she pulled up this one plant. I said, “Why’d you do that?” It had a little red berry on it. She said, “This isn’t a strawberry.” At first glance I thought it was — but when I looked at it more closely, I could see that the little red fruit on there was NOT actually a strawberry; it was something else that didn’t need to be in the strawberry patch. You could tell it wasn’t a strawberry by its fruit.
Which reminds us of an important spiritual principle. Jesus said: “You will know them (His true followers) by their fruits.” Many people want to claim to be Christians, but Jesus said that genuine Christians will bear certain fruit in their lives, and by that fruit you can tell them apart from those who just “say” they are following Jesus but are not really.
Our passage for this morning, James 1:21-27, spells out for us what some of that fruit is. Jesus said in :21 that “the word implanted … is able to save your souls.” That is, the word of the gospel can come and be “planted” into your life, and it can save you — IF it finds good soil to grow in (like Matthew 13 talks about). But how do you KNOW if the gospel has found good soil in your life? How do you know if you are really following Jesus, and not just making an empty claim to be a Christian (like so many people do)? This passage shows us at least three things that will be present in your life if you are really a Christian: Continue reading
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