“Out of the good treasure of his heart the good man brings forth good, and out of evil the evil man brings forth evil. For from the overflow of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6:45, TLV

We can hide a lot of things about ourselves. Anger. Hatred. Longing. Fear. But, because of the way our Heavenly Father made us, eventually, those things affect our behavior. Sometimes in strange ways.

Someone who gossips may harbor a root of fear and insecurity. An abuser, experts have already proven, was once abused. Every corrupted effects in our life, are caused by corruption in our heart.

In the previous verse, Yeshua (Jesus) explains: “Each tree comes to be known by its own fruit. For figs are not gleaned out of briars; neither are bunches of grapes gathered from thorn bushes.” (Luke 6:44, TLV)

Does this mean that we are briars and thorn bushes? Yes.

However, if we are atoned — redeemed — by the Lamb of God, Jesus, then we are covered by His precious blood.

No more briars and thorn bushes

His sacrifice is not so that we can go on being a thorn bushes or, in my case stinkweed, but that we work on our hearts with the Holy Spirit to be more like Yeshua. To be more like the olive tree we have been grafted into (Romans 11:16-24).

So, maybe as we root out our hearts of anger, hatred, fear, longing, greed — all those uglies — we can begin to produce more of our Messiah’s fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

That would be pretty amazing, don’t you think?