Mt 7:15-20 Fruit From The Family Tree - Yes - Buckcesar's blog

Mt 7:15-20? Fruit From The Family Tree

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Jesus said to his disciples:? ?Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep?s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.? By their fruits you will know them.?

I was really surprised when I saw him.? He was back with his family and they were happy to have him.? After almost two years of ?being dead?, the prodigal son had returned to his senses.? Or had he?

I had good reasons to suspect he was up to no good.? But I wasn?t sure.? Then one night, I received a text message confirming my suspicions.? A member of the family wrote and said, ?After a beautiful evening spent together, my brother let his true colors show when he asked mom and dad to loan him a ton of money.? They said no.? At that, he burst out the door throwing a fit (and not a few horrible insults) vowing never to return again.??

I knew it.? People don?t change overnight.

Recently, I had lunch with a man who had a problem on his hands.? He allowed his twenty-five-year-old niece to move into his home with his family.? She said she needed some time to pay off her credit card debts. ?She promised it would be for only 10 months.? Well, after two years, five vacations, and almost one thousand dollars spent in a single day at the Dallas Galleria, she?s still living with them.? She was ?visibly upset? when told she had to leave in two weeks.?

She didn?t need a place to stay.? She needed a good talk and a kick in the pants!

Making good fruit out of bad trees.? For the longest time now, we?ve been trying to produce good fruit from bad trees.? In other words, we?ve been trying to get good results from bad decisions.? It won?t work.? But we keep trying, and?our nation keeps spending billions (maybe even trillions) of dollars fixing problems rather than preventing them. ?Let me give you one example out of thousands.? Our government will give free bibles to any inmate that asks for one.? But it won't give a free bible to any student that asks for one.? Why is it?? Why are we so backwards?? Why are we so decadent in our religious intolerance?? When did Jesus Christ ever hurt anyone?? When did the federal government ever hurt anyone?? Ooh?ooh?I know?I know!!!

Making good fruit out of a good tree.? Many Americans think that poor people need a hand out. ?I agree.? But what kind of handouts do they need?? What handouts did the Irish or Italians, or Jews or Chinese or Koreans receive?? Many!! But none from the federal government.? Instead, the government insisted that they get help from family and friends.? And so inadvertently, since we never learned this lesson, they strengthened family ties.? You can still see the remnants of this reality when you visit ?Little Italy?, ?Chinatown?, ?Little Havana?, ?Irish Town?, ?Little Portugal?, ?Little India?, ?Greek town? ?Little Saigon? (or not so little ?Saigon Mall?), etc?

Of course The Government can help,?but they demand a break in?ties (especially religious ones) for every good they do.? Whereas with families, every good they do ties them closer together.?

Are rich people better off than poor people?? Yes!? And we know that because all the rich people keep telling us.? But I think I would shock a lot of Americans if I told them that poor people are better off than rich people, and in many ways.? In fact, if it weren?t for the poor people, the rich people would find life meaningless!? From my personal conversations with our rich and yuppie families, it seems as though the greatest joys that come to their life come from poor people.? In fact, rich kids tell me they find more pleasure in life when they go on missions rather than when they go to Ft. Lauderdale.? In fact, a lot of rich kids tell me they learn more from the poor people than they do from their rich parents!? What do poor people think of all this attention?? Are they surprised to hear it?? No.? They can see it for themselves.

A good tree bears great fruit, regardless of whether or not it is a banana tree or an apple tree or an orange tree.? Is one better than the other?? In some ways yes, and in other ways no.?

Of course, one can accuse me of being an idiot, a fanatic, a republican, a libertarian.? But strangely enough, the one thing I would not be accused of is being wrong.? Speak to a poor person.? Go visit a poor family.? What do you see??

We love to do experiments, especially bogus ones.? We love to shoot a bullet through a watermelon to see what result it will have (like we didn?t know already).? When it comes to social engineering experiments, we do the same thing.? Like a bomb, we drop an idea from the sky (as if the earth was one gigantic test tube) and wait to see what long term affects this will have.? We don?t know for certain what to expect or what we will even get.? You might not know this, but we are doing this all the time.? We are a lot more careful with our environment than we are with our marriages, families and children.? A farmer knows that if he plants an apple seed, he will get an apple.? If he plants an orange seed, he will get an orange.? It would be ridiculous for the farmer to expect an apple tree from an orange tree.? But for some strange reason we think if we twist and bend and turn upside down marriage, family and children, then it should have better than great effects on our children and families.? Hmmm.? Interesting.?

What do you think we will get the day we have the best schools ever, the best technology ever, the best government ever, the best social programs (like health care and social security) ever?? What do you think we will get if we spend 1 trillion dollars more on public school education and teachers salaries?? What do you think we will see if we spend 1 trillion more on fitness centers and weight loss clinics?

Let?s ask the poor people.?

You know what I think?? Without strong families, strong marriages and a strong faith, we will get what we already have:? a bad tree with bad fruit.

Money can buy a lot of things, but it can?t produce a loving and faith-filled family.? In fact, it tends to spoil them rotten.?

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Source: http://buckcesar.typepad.com/blog/2012/06/mt-715-20-fruit-from-the-family-tree-yes.html

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