Two Fruit Trees - Different Fruit

      A farmer one planted two fruit trees on opposite sides of his property.  The one he planted to provide a hedge hide the unsightly view of an old landfill; the other to provide shade to rest under near a cool mountain stream which ran down beside his fields.  As the two trees grew, both produced began to flower and bear fruit.  One day the farmer decided to gather the fruit from the tree nearest his house " the one used to provide a hedge from the landfill.  As he brought the fruit inside the house, he noticed that it was a little deformed " the symmetry of the fruit was not very good, but still the fruit looked edible. Later that evening, while sitting on his porch the farmer took one of the pieces of fruit for a snack.  Biting into the fruit, he found it to be extremely bitter, and completely inedible.  Casting the fruit aside he looked across the field to the other tree over by the mountain stream.  After walking across the field, the farmer took a piece of the fruit from the other tree and bit into it.  Find the fruit to be sweet and delicious he gathered several more pieces of fruit and took them to the house.

      The fruit was greatly affected by the nutrition of the root.  Just as the tree grew by the landfill to be bitter, and the tree by the stream produced sweet fruit, so the Christian has a choice.  He can either put down his roots into the soil of the landfill of fleshly pursuits, or into the cool refreshing stream of the person of Jesus Christ.  We must understand that the root bears the fruit.  The fruit of the Christian is the outward evidence of the inward motivation.

      Psa 1:1-6, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish."