Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, my mother used to make an apple salad that I love to this day. I usually make it myself around those two holidays.

You can put what you want in it, but I usually include the following: peeled apple (Red Delicious) cut in small cubes, celery (cut up small), raisins, miniature marshmallows, mayonnaise, nuts (Pecans or Walnuts) cut up small. All of this is mixed to taste, but there is one other ingredient that must be used after cutting up the apples. It is called Fruit Fresh. On the container, it states that it is a “produce protector that prevents browning and protects flavor of fresh-cut produce.” If this isn’t used, the apples are going to get real nasty over a short time.

Our Lord has told us He wants those who are His to produce fruit because, in His divine wisdom, He has a recipe to make our lives more enjoyable and more productive for His glory.

“By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (John 15:8).

Assuming we are following His command of producing fruit, our fruit can be fresh and tasty or it can result in brown, unsavory rottenness if the Fruit Fresh isn’t applied in our life. Our Fruit Fresh is the application of the Holy Spirit in whatever we do.

“that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10).

If the Spirit of God is sprinkled in whatever we do, say and think, then our fruit is pleasing to Him.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

However, if we are not sprinkling our fruit with the Holy Spirit, it will become rancid and take on the appearance of the world. The world, those without Christ, can only produce fruit of the flesh because there is no preserving power of the Holy Spirit.

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).

Today, our world is topsy-turvy. Everything is upside down and backwards. Instead of the church going out into the world, the world has come in and is taking over the church. Isaiah said it well:

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)

When I think back to the days of my youth and then consider our society today, I feel like I must be on another planet. Our world today is going to hell in a handbasket. How did we get here? When it becomes difficult for the world to tell any difference between themselves and a true Christian, the answer is obvious. We got here because we compromised.

It is surprising today when those who claim to be Christians can’t even tell right from wrong. Sin parks on their doorstep, and they invite it in. False gospels flow from the pulpits of America, and untold numbers of professing Christians don’t recognize it for what it is. Why is that? In one word … ignorance.

Until the printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1450, almost no one had a Bible. Even afterwards, men gave their lives for the Bible to be printed in the language of the people. Most people didn’t even know how to read and write. Therefore, many were ignorant of God’s Word, but today there is no excuse. Today, ignorance is by choice. Most still allow the opinions of others to rule their thinking instead of going to the Bible and getting the Truth.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been so watered down by liberal pulpits, entire churches have been conned by Satan’s lies. Why? It is because so few Christians really and truly study God’s holy Word; i.e., the Bible, and allow the Holy Spirit to guide their study and to guide the life they live.

Our fruit has become very offensive because we refuse to use the only thing that will keep it fresh. As already stated, the Holy Spirit working in the life of a Christian works like Fruit Fresh to keep produce from spoiling, but the Spirit of God must work through His own Word to produce the right kind of fruit in our lives and to keep it fresh.

We need to ask ourselves (notice, I say “We,” not “You”):

Can others look at us and see Love for them?
Can they see Joy and Peace in our lives?
Are we Longsuffering (patient) with others?
Are we Kind?
Can they see Goodness coming from us?
Can they see that we are Faithful to Jesus?
Are we Gentle with others?
Do we practice Self-control?

I think the most important is that our fruit shows a legitimate love for others. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Jesus Himself told us:

“…Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

You think maybe God is saying that if we take care of the “love” part of our Christian lives, the rest will take care of itself, including the fruits we produce?

Any true Christian wants to produce good fruit for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We all want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” If we would seriously study His Word and ask Him to keep us fresh in His Spirit, there is no reason we can’t honor our Lord with good fruit. And Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:20).

Jesus is returning soon, and many Christians will be surprised. When is He returning? I don’t know, but we are definitely in the season of the Lord’s return. He could come at any time. Are we producing fruits for Him? He left us this word by the apostle Paul.

“The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.

Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:12-14).

Grant Phillips
Email: Phillip5769@twc.com
Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com
Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html

The Gospel is the message of how God reconciles fallen man to Himself, by taking the verdict on us of sin’s penalty (He became our substitute.) and in turn giving us His righteousness through His death, burial and resurrection. This would be made available to all who would “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

It begins in Genesis chapter three. Prior to this chapter, man had fellowship with His Creator, the one and only true God.

God had told the first man Adam to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He and his wife Eve could eat of any tree they liked, and there were many to choose from, but if they ate of this one tree, they would die. Satan tempted them through a serpent. They listened to the serpent and ate from this one forbidden tree, thus dying spiritually. Their bodies eventually followed suit in death.

They had sinned against God by believing Satan instead. The fellowship they once had was now broken, and they were driven from the beautiful garden of Eden they so loved (Genesis 3:14-24).

The Gospel is first mentioned in verse 15, “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” The hostility of Satan and his followers has never ceased against those who are in Christ. Because of his hatred for God, he struck Jesus’ heel at the cross, but Jesus will strike his head on Judgment Day.

The Gospel message is continued in verse 21, “And the LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife” (Genesis 3:21).

Obviously, both Adam and Eve repented and asked forgiveness. God covered them with the clothing of an innocent animal. This clothing from animal skins represented the righteousness of Jesus laid upon them, and the shed blood was a promise that one day Jesus would shed His own blood for all who will come to Him to be saved. In other words, through Jesus, the fellowship between God and man would be restored for those who believed in Him.

We lost the fellowship and inherited an old sin nature because originally we believed the serpent, but the fellowship can be restored through Jesus. He will also remove that old sin nature and restore our innocence and purity.

Also, notice something else; God did not go to His vegetable garden and wrap Adam and Eve in a salad. God wrapped them with “garments of skin and clothed them.” Only the sacrifice of shed blood can cover our sins, which of course, points directly to the cross of Christ. This explains why Cain got in trouble with God and became so jealous of his brother Abel that he murdered him.

The Gospel, in a nutshell, is our fall into sin and God’s lifeline to restore us to Him. That lifeline is His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Only through Him can we be saved.

“He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings” (Psalm 40:2).

In the Old Testament, those who came to God through His Son did so by looking ahead through the corridors of time at a future sacrifice. The promised sacrifice of Genesis 3:15 eventually happened when Jesus became that promised sacrifice upon the cross for all who would come to Him by faith. Now, we look back through the corridors of time to that same sacrifice of Jesus upon that Roman cross.

How can anyone say, “God doesn’t care about me?”

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God” (John 3:14-21).

Doesn’t care!? We are the ones hardened by sin! Don’t think so? Please read, slowly, Romans 3:10-18 if you really want to know who doesn’t care. We are the cold and calloused ones, but if we will just trust Jesus by faith, our eyes will be opened, and we will experience firsthand His love for us.

The Lord Jesus explains very clearly through Paul His apostle all that was just stated. I have provided it the New Living Translation (NLT) to make it easier for all to grasp what our Lord is saying to us.

“When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come.

But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.

God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:12-21).

The Gospel is so simple. We fell, but God is reaching out His hand to pick us up and give us eternal life with Him, but this we must understand: God reaches out His hand in His Son. We must come to Him through His Son. There is no other way but through Jesus.

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

So many try to make the Gospel all about us … our works. We cannot do anything to be saved except believe in Jesus with the trust of a little child. If we don’t stop trying to work our way to Heaven instead of trusting Jesus to save us, we will leave this world still lost and in hell.

Yes, the Gospel is so simple. It is the good news that Jesus died for us, was buried and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). All that we lost because of sin can be restored if we just realize and admit that we are sinners and we need to be born again (John 3:3). When we die, we will be with Him (2 Corinthians 5:8). And that’s not all. He is coming again, first to remove His bride the Church (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), then seven years later returning with His bride the Church to judge the world (Revelation 19:11-16).

Grant Phillips

Email: Phillip5769@twc.com

Pre-Rapture Commentary: http://grant-phillips.blogspot.com

Rapture Ready: https://www.raptureready.com/featured/phillips/phillips.html