Murder Grows from the Seed of Hate

Most of us watched in horror as Charlie Kirk was assassinated before our eyes. Many of us viewed the footage where Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee was stabbed to death on a Charlotte train with no provocation. Those of us with any sense of morality or common sense, ask the question, “Why?”

I am relieved to know that so many of us can’t fathom how these things can happen. It seems such a senseless act to destroy another human being—a being made in the very image of God. Our hearts cry and our reasoning minds can’t comprehend the depths of hate.

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Fake Fruit on Dead Trees

“Fake fruit on a dead tree”, is a phrase my pastor, Bro. Bradley Petrey, recently used in a sermon. It describes the look some folks try to portray in Christian circles. I told him, “I do not like the condition it describes but I loved the phraseology.”

Jesus used something similar when He said, “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. / A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit” (Matt. 7:17-18 NKJV).

The fruit depends on the tree. Said another way, the tree determines the fruit.

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Be the Fragrance of Christ

Let us be the fragrance of Jesus, by being Jesus to others on our journey of life. “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place” (2 Cor. 2:14 NKJV). 

As this scripture states, the fragrance of Jesus is diffused through us in every place. We journey through life in the power of the Holy Spirit. The lives of others are touched by Jesus through us. We need to understand that we can be Jesus to someone, somewhere, somehow. 

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