Jumping Outside Your Kind

Warren E. Berkley

Do you like grapefruit? Have you ever had any of the famous south Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit? I used to grow some of the best in my backyard, and some harvests were superior. I shared some of those good years with a friend, Tony Mauck.

But what would you think – at harvest time – if I had reported to you with these words: “Just picked my grapefruit for this season. Funny thing happened. On one tree I had watermelon, tomatoes, olives and grapes.” Such a statement would put you on alert, not about the tree but about me. What is it? Early onset of dementia; complete loss of sanity? Whatever you may not know about South Texas citrus, you know that seed produces after its’ kind. The seed, the tree and the fruit will never jump outside the kind.

Christians are “a kind of firstfruits of His creatures,” (Jas. 1:18). If we are living in keeping with our birth (reproduction, see Jno. 3), what we think and say is the expected fruit (Gal. 5:22-26). It should strike us as unnatural and against our birth to speak with an unruly tongue.

Or as James said, “Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh,” (Jas. 3:10-12).

Tomorrow – THE PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE from the book DO THINGS WELL.