Make a list of your favorite desserts. The list is likely to include Strawberry Short Cake, Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Apple Pie. What about your favorite candy? Skittles, Sour Straws, or Starburst? Basically, anything “fruit” flavored, right? Everything sweet we love is made to taste like fruit, but we don’t actually like fruit. We eat it when we have to, when there’s no other option, or when we go on a healthy kick, but other than that, we ignore it.
Because let’s be honest—fruit-flavored candy doesn’t actually taste like fruit. And fruity desserts are good because the fruit is covered in cinnamon, sugar, cream and bread. We take something natural, extract the part we like about it and use it to make something that we enjoy, but is essentially bad for us.
Sound familiar?
We do the same thing with Jesus.
We get saved as a child (real or not), we grew up and we went to college. Some of us went to a Christian college. Our favorite things to do are go to small groups, help out with Sunday school, lead Bible studies, and take trendy Bible and coffee pictures at the local coffee shop. We don’t dig deep into the Word. We don’t talk to God consistently. We don’t share His Truth with anyone. We don’t reach beyond the walls of the church. We don’t disciple, we don’t do outreach, we simply miss the point. Because it’s easy, and because it tastes better. We settle for what is supposed to look like real Christianity, but really is nothing like it. It goes by the same name, but underneath, it’s an entirely different thing. It’s sugar-coated, and it’s fake, and it has no roots. To be honest, it’s not even natural. It’s not the way that Jesus ever intended His followers to be. It was never supposed to be easy or trendy. But we made it out to be something that it isn’t. We extracted the part of Christianity that we wanted to keep, and we used it to make something that we enjoy, but that is essentially bad for us.
*Warning: This lifestyle contains artificial flavor.*
Real Christianity doesn’t require trendy pictures. It doesn’t require you to be popular amongst the other church people. It does, however, require real fruit. The minute we accept Him, we become a ripe fruit—a fruit with seeds that is able to bear more fruit. That means our relationship with Jesus must be deeper than the ground we came out of. We weren’t called to rot. And we weren’t called to look pretty on the outside and not be the same way underneath. Nobody wants to bite into an apple and find a worm.
In order to be the “fruit” that He called us to be, we must practice what we preach. We must practice what the read. We have to intently study His word, we have to stay in touch with Jesus all day every day. We have to listen to His voice and obey it. We have to go beyond the walls of the church to make a difference. We have to find people who haven’t seen the light and lead them to it. We have to be able to show people that the reason we live is reason enough for them to live. The best way to prove that we live what we believe is to be an example of Jesus. To be fruitful. To be real. Not artificial.
*This lifestyle is made with real fruit.*