Jesus said,

Matthew 12:33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.  34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things: for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.  35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.  36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.  37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Paul said,

Romans 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;  9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God had hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.   10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; andwith the mouth confession is made unto salvation.   11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

We cannot hide and be a secret follower of Christ.

We must confess him openly before men.

Matthew 10:32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.  33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven.

We cannot be closet Christians.

To say, “it is my private thing” is to deny him before men.

To speak of good things that happen in our lives that God does on our behalf and say it was “fortunate” or “it just worked out” or give credit for it to anything other than God is not giving the glory and honor where it is due.

The WORDS we say do matter.  Our words that we speak are the only things that are truly OURS, it is our free will to speak what we believe. The Bible speaks of a “sacrifice of praise”. Hebrews 13:15 says, “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.  16 But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased”. Our praise and thanks and actions are the only things we can give that are truly ours.

Another thing Matthew 12:33 makes me think of is: are our actions and words equal? By that I mean: Are the good works accompanied by giving praise to Jesus? Are the “Praise the Lord” comments accompanied by a life of good works? We are not saved by good works for it is by grace alone. Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:  9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.  10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

I also notice that it says, “make the tree good” and it will produce good fruit. We make the tree good by trusting Christ! If we don’t do that then our tree will still be rotten and produce rotten fruit no matter how hard we try otherwise. It is not the fruit that saves us as noted above. If we trust in Christ for our salvation, that he paid the full payment of our sin debt, then our mouths need to ‘prove’ it and so do our actions.  (James 2:14-26 is very clear about this.)

On this celebration of Resurrection Day, take time to consider a few things. We have all broken God’s holy moral law, often referred to as the ten commandments. Read them. They are in Exodus 20. Then flip forward to Matthew 5, 6 &7 and read Jesus’ sermon on the mount. Here Jesus points out to us that there is no salvation in outwardly keeping the ten commandments because it is our inward heart attitude behind them that condemns us. Hmm… the tree must be good to have good fruit, that tree would be our heart by the way. We are all sinners. Our sin requires judgment and a payment. Just like a criminal. He is condemned and gets a life sentence, say, confinement to prison. Our sentence as a sinner is confinement to hell. (Read Luke 16:19-31 and take note that at the end it says, “neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”)  Jesus Christ paid that sentence/sacrifice for our sin as a gift of love to us and ROSE AGAIN!!!

It is a free gift for anyone who will receive it.

If someone gives us a gift, it is not ours until we accept it.

We must accept Christ’s gift to truly call it ours.

We cannot claim to have salvation in Christ if we have never realized:

What we are: sinners.

What we deserve because of that sin: hell.

What Christ did for us: died in our place on the cross of Calvary and paid our sin debt.

We must personally accept his gift to us.

In prayer, humbly tell God you realize these things:

that you are a sinner,

that you deserve hell,

that you can do nothing in an of yourself to pay that sin debt,

and that you accept his gift of salvation in his Son Jesus Christ.

We are saved by placing our belief in Christ, which makes our “tree” good which should bring good fruit in our words and our actions.

Something to ponder as we hike along today noticing all that spring growth all around us.

Remembering a certain day in which I took two non-hikers up Old Rag Mountain.

We left in plenty of time to go up and down in just a few hours but I did not count in the fact that they were not regular hikers. The hike, which is supposed to take about 4-5 hours, took 11 hours. Too many breathers and rest stops were taken and so the hike took even more time.

We should have been off the mountain by 6PM but we were just coming off the summit headed for the fire road at 5:30. We still had .7 miles to go to the fire road and 2 miles more on the actual fire road to get back to the trail’s parking lot.

As we were hiking down the back of the loop toward the fire road, we hiked by a tree that was shredded from about 4 feet to about 7 feet up from the ground. The bark had been shredded off the tree and deep cuts were in the tree. It is a given that they were the work of a black bear. Black bears are prevalent in this area of the Blue Ridge.  As I walked by the tree I placed my hand on it and found it to be very wet. The wounds in the tree were fresh. I really did not want to meet that bear or any other bear in the dark!

Trying to urge my hiking companions to keep a faster pace to get off the mountain before dark, I pointed out that the November sun was quickly sinking and when it dropped below the ridge of the mountain on the other side it would get dark very quickly. Yes, the adrenaline was already pumping from anxiety about getting to the parking lot in the dark. I kept reminding myself that I walked this fire road many times in my childhood at dusk. However, I don’t ever remember doing it in the pitch dark of night.

Several issues were on my mind.

First, I did not want to miss the T in the fire road.

Second, I did not want to miss the Y in the fire road farther on ahead of us.

Third, two of us  had to keep the third companion walking at a steady pace and not let her give up. Her feet were already blistered from having worn “new” trainers on this hike. (FYI: never wear new shoes to hike in!)

We made it to the T in the fire road as it was getting darker. I took out the flashlight so it would be handy. The sunlight faded fast and we soon found ourselves hiking in the dark. The darkness settled quickly and I knew we still had more than an hour of hiking to go at the rate we were moving.

So there we were hiking in darkness. The only light was from a single flashlight that only put a circle of light on the ground at our feet that was about 5 feet in circumference. Not much light for three grown women. We walked along with our companion with the foot trouble in the middle, leaning on us as though we were crutches. Every so often I would shine the light up the road in front of us to check for Y in the road so that we would not miss it. Having walked in the dark this way for more than 45 minutes I flashed the light up the road and not ten feet in front of us was a huge buck with a full rack, looking at us. Thankfully he quickly disappeared off into the darkness at the edge of the road.

It is at this point I began to whistle as loudly as I could. I whistled every hymn I could think of. My friends began singing along often singing the same verse over and over because the only one coming to mind was the first stanza.

With every snap of a twig in the darkness the adrenaline saturated my system even more.

There were animals there that we could not see but I figured at this point if they could hear us coming from the noise we were making, they would be clearing off and not challenging our endeavor.

The flashlight was growing dimmer and dimmer. I praise Jesus that my mom had handed me two packs of fresh batteries along with that flashlight as I walked out the door that morning! We stopped and I set out the fresh batteries in the order in which they would go into the flashlight knowing that as soon as I turned off the light to change the batteries we would be in total darkness.

With the batteries changed and the circle of light we were walking in a bit brighter, we found the Y in the fire road. Finding the Y brought some comfort but knowing we still had over a mile to go brought the realization that we would be walking for at least another hour.

We walked on singing and whistling and praying for safety.

Suddenly the flashlight reflected off the water of a stream going straight across our path. Convincing the friend with the sore fee that the water was no more than 6 inches deep took some doing. The way the light reflected did not give any hint as to how deep the water was. I knew that the bridge to the parking lot was just on the other side. Flashing the light across the stream lit up the bridge.

You would have thought it was the bridge right into Heaven.

Walking through the stream proved it to be only about one to two inches deep. Prayers of thanksgiving bubbled out of us. We had finally made it to the parking lot.

Often times our hike with Jesus is like this experience. We find ourselves walking in the dark, so to speak, not knowing what is in front of us or around us just out of our line of sight. We must be reading our trail guide and trusting Jesus, our hiking companion, that He knows the way we are to take. He DOES know, and he will direct our steps, telling us to continue putting one foot in front of the other. “Just do the next thing,” Elisabeth Elliot is always urging in her writing. God will open and shut the doors, we just need to keep walking in obedience to where he points us.

: :

Walking in the dark (physically) is like walking in faith (spiritually).

First, you cannot see how far you have still to go. You may be on the last hundred yards or you may have a hundred feet or miles to go. This presents an interesting dynamic of being forced to focus only on the step you are momentarily taking enabling us to just BE in the moment we are in. This allows us to face the moment, focus on the moment, feel the moment, absorb the moment, and evaluate the moment.

Secondly, you cannot see the potential dangers that may lurk in the dark nearby. As we hiked in the dark, we knew there were potential dangers nearby having seen the result of the slashed tree. We have seen in the past “slashed trees” of others who have made the same choices we are making and many of them are thriving even though they have been hurt deeply. The Lord has brought them healing of their wounds even though there are some scars left behind he has brought them into areas of greater growth.

Oh, and that marker in the trail telling which side of the Y to take…  Jesus is such a faithful dependable hiking guide.

He has shown us which direction to go.

Though there may be lots of rock scrambles and crevices up ahead we are confident that as we walk in obedience to him, because he is leading us: he takes full responsibility for us and fulfilling his will in us and through us.

Though we know which direction we are hiking in, we are still hiking in the dark and it seems we will be for a while longer, thankfully we have that circle of light to walk in and he will bring us out into the brightness of morning eventually…

Joy comes in the morning.

Many people in the Bible learned lessons in not such pleasant ways. The consequences that bring us to “learn our lessons” are not always very pleasant. Jonah had to spend some time in the belly of the whale. Moses lost the privilege of entering the promised land himself. David suffered the death of several sons. Peter got called down by Paul rather publicly.