Kieffer Pears...Good Fruit and Bad Fruit

 The two Kieffer pear trees in our backyard are loaded with beautiful, big pears which are getting ripe and will be ready to pick around mid-November. Birds, deer and other critters, including our two dogs, have been already feasting on them.

              

Watering, pruning, cutting off dead limbs and thinning are some of the ways we help; but the trees do most of the “work” by themselves, producing first the buds, leaves and blossoms in the early spring after being bare and dormant all winter, then the sweet, crunchy fruit in the fall.

           

Kieffer pears are great right off the tree when they’re ripe. They also are good canned, baked in pies and fruit crisp, cooked as pear sauce and even dried in the dehydrator. The two trees produce enough good fruit to last several months and to share with others as well.

             

The only major problem we have with the pears is the damage made by tiny insects when the fruit is first forming. Sometimes there will be tell-tale black spots on the outside of the pear. When a pear drops to the ground early and is cut open, there are usually signs of insects which have bored down to its core.

            

 It is disappointing when a pear seems to be perfect on the outside, but is bruised and rotten on the inside. Sometimes a portion of the pear is salvageable, while the rotten parts have to be cut out. Occasionally the whole fruit is too far gone and has to be tossed out.

            

 I often wonder what God sees when He looks into my heart. Things which seem invisible to me must be glaring to Him, things which I somehow try to justify or ignore, like bad attitudes, self-centeredness and wrong thoughts. He sees the sin which has permeated deep within, to the very core of my being. However, rather than tossing me out like a rotten pear, God loves me anyway.

             

How can a holy God love a person so prone to sinning as myself? God has shown the depth of His love for me and for all mankind by sending His Son Jesus to die for our sins. We all share something in common—the natural tendency to sin. By accepting Christ into our lives as Lord and Savior, God forgives us:

           

 “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow…” (Isaiah 1:18a NIV)

             

When we put our trust in Jesus Christ and accept God’s gift of salvation, not only are we forgiven, but the Holy Spirit also comes to live within us. He begins changing our hearts and empowers us in the struggle which ensues between the “old man” and the “new.” In his letter to the Galatians, Paul teaches that the Holy Spirit produces “good fruit” in the lives of those who trust in and are living for Christ. (Galatians 5:22-23)

             

How does that happen? Good fruit doesn’t grow all at once. It takes time for us to grow and mature in our love relationship with God and to die to self.  Bad fruit, which comes from our old, sinful nature, is replaced with good fruit as we learn to confess our sins and to submit to the control of the Holy Spirit.

            

 A friend once told me that he was “too far gone” to be saved. Well, I’m afraid that we are all in the same sinking boat. Praise be to God for providing the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. Now that is great news!

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23 NIV

(published in the Porterville Recorder October 26, 2013)