Take care of the tree and it'll naturally produce good fruit. It makes no sense to start working on the fruit -- trying to make the apples sweeter, bigger, juicier. Take care of the tree, and you'll have good fruit.
Tend to my tree, and I'll produce good fruit.
Tend to my heart and I'll live a life of love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Is Jesus saying that if I tend to my heart, I'll be generous? If I tend to my heart, I'll experience self-control? Is that right?
I know that no amount of trying to be loving will make me loving. I can act as if I love you for a while, but that's not real love. Love has to come from within and flow out into my life. I can't be mad at you, and pretend "I'm fine, I'm happy, no problem" and call that love or joy or peace. It's not. It's pretending.
Good tree -- good fruit. Jesus is looking for us to be real. Authentic. Good fruit. No pretending.
How can we accomplish this? Jesus confirmed that all of the instruction in the Scriptures can be captured in the command, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Why is that? Because, if we tend to our hearts' devotion, we'll produce good fruit. The Springs retreat is all about learning how to tend to our hearts.
How do we live the spiritual life? How do we increasingly have our thoughts, attitudes, desires transformed so that we are authentically good? Love the Lord your God...
Don't work on fixing the fruit. Tend to the tree. Good tree--good fruit. Tend to your heart.
And the second commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
First, tend to your heart -- Love the Lord your God. Then, in real, authentic ways, let the love of God overflow and in tangible ways...love others.
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