The Fruit Reveals the Root

We’ve been looking at the Five Tenets of the Real. If you missed the first three tenets, you can read about them here: The Creator of Reality, Reality Rooted in God, and Union with God Recreates Us.

As we pursue the real, the counterfeit will try to convince us to embrace it instead. This bait and switch tactic often proves more convincing than we’d like to think.

For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones. (Matthew 24:24 NLT)

What can we do to help guard against deception? Tenet 4 gives us the answer.

Tenet 4: The Fruit Reveals the Root

While we may not initially know what kind of tree it is, the roots do. So we start at the source. Ultimately, there are only two trees that matter in the universe. Remember, everything has roots that tap into one of these trees. Even when we can’t see the roots, we can look at the fruit of the person, organization, or teaching.

Jesus states it this way: You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit…Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. (Matthew 7:20 NLT)

It’s not always easy to initially discern between the real and the artificial, but this tenet will prove a rescue. Because the fruit always reveals the root.

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