Hosea chapter 10. Good fruit or bad fruit? Take your PICK.
God warns Israel of his coming wrath and destruction because they SOW wickedness and the fruit they REAP is evil and deception. God calls them to SOW righteousness for then they will REAP the fruit of unfailing love.
God also says when his wrath comes, then they will acknowledge how they had rejected God and how they picked Kings without God's direction. Israel will declare they don't want a king because every King they have breaks their promises.
This makes me think of our political world today. It's like a game. Republican and Democrats both can't be trusted. In fact, many people have made politics their god. All their energy goes into their political party and they are consumed with it. I wish we all were as consumed with our relationship with Christ.
We may think our political party is THE POLITICAL PARTY, but no party holds a candle to the one who's really in control – the Lord God Almighty. I put my trust in him!
I pray for our political parties and for God to shine through it all but I don't trust our political system to be my hope for tomorrow.
Let's put our hope in God and let's focus on planting seeds of righteousness so we can produce fruit for the kingdom of God, the fruit of love, that is, the unfailing love of Christ.
We are either going to produce fruit that comes from the spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23 (Love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control) or we'll produce bad fruit that comes from our sinful nature found in Galatians 5:19-21 (sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like).
God warns us, as he did Israel, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
So when people look at me or look at you, do they see the fruit of righteousness or the fruit of wickedness? People will know if I'm a follower of Christ, not because I tell them I'm a follower of Christ but because they see the fruit that comes from my life.
Jesus said you'll know if a person is following HIM by the fruit that comes from their lives not from their mouths (Matthew 7:15-20).
Have a good productive fruitful day! 