"Matters of the heart"
A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. (Matthew 12:35 NLT)
If I want apples, I have to plant an apple tree. If I decide I want oranges then I can't just go pick the apples from the apple tree hoping they will grow back oranges. I can't expect an apple tree to produce oranges. If I want oranges I will have to plant an orange tree.
This is the point of Jesus' teaching here. Fruit is not the be all, end all of the tree. Fruit points back to the tree. We know an apple tree because of the fruit it bears. But the reason it bears fruit is because of the kind of tree it is. It can only, always produce the kind of fruit based on the kind of tree it is.
Similarly, the things we do with our lives & the behavior we exhibit are telling of who we are. Just like fruit comes from the root of the tree, so does our behavior come from our hearts. Just like we can't pick all the fruit from an apple tree & hope to get oranges that grow back, so too we can't modify our behavior & expect to be different people. We don't need behavior modification, we need new hearts. We need to be a new tree.
This is what Jesus came to do. He came to make us new. He came to give us new hearts. And out of those new hearts comes God-honoring behavior.
So don't try to change your behavior, change the root, let God change your heart, the fruit will take care of itself.
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