Let’s pretend that a young woman came to the Kung Fu class and said that she’d like to begin learning from me. She explained that she had initially learned from another instructor and had even been promoted to an advanced belt rank. Now she wanted to learn under a different teacher.
Subsequently, I had her change into her gi (uniform) and paired her with one of my advanced students. They left to begin working out on their fighting techniques but returned to me within minutes. My student was upset and complained, “Sam, she (indicating the new student) doesn’t know anything. I threw her a punch and she had no idea of what to do, she just stood there looking at me. So I stopped and threw another punch and she just kept standing there. I would have hit her if I hadn’t stopped my punch. I don’t think she knows anything.”
“What?” I said, turning and staring at the young woman. “You told me that you trained for months and hold a belt rank. That means that you should know what to do but you don’t know anything? If you don’t know anything that means that you never trained. Why did you tell me that you had?” “Better yet,” I thought, “why did you lie to me?”
The young lady looked down and gave an guilty grin like people do when they’ve been caught.
After dealing with the situation, all I could think was, “What a thing to do, didn’t she think it would be immediately obvious that she had no training in San Soo? Sure he could wear a gi and even wear a colored belt that she must have bought somewhere. But, that doesn’t mean she knows San Soo.”
That whole situation brings this scenario to mind. Let’s say you and I are walking through an apple orchard. We stop at one tree, pick one of its apples from the limb and notice that the fruit feels soft and the skin is a pale color. We take a bite and immediately spit it out because the fruit is bitter and nasty tasting. We then walk a few steps away and pick an apple from another tree. That apple is large, red and firm. We bite into it tasting a sweet, juicy, delicious fruit. Just the opposite of the first one we tried. Both trees may have looked the same but what they produced was radically different.
Jesus frequently used an analogy of fruit to exemplify the discovery of the true nature of a person. In Matthew 7:18-19, Jesus said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.”
Jesus was saying a person will reflect what they are made of by how they act. Appearances don’t count but actions do. A person could claim they are saved, a believer in Jesus Christ and committed to the teachings of Jesus. They can go to church, raise their hands in worship and even quote scripture. But the true test is the fruit or the actions of the person.
Here is a good question to ask every day to keep ourselves in check. “If my fruit was inspected today would people say, “Yeah, they’re a Christian, you can tell by how they act.” Or would they say, “What, they aren’t a Christian, not the way they act, no way!”
If you feel your fruit is not where it should be, today is a great time to make a radical change in your life.
2 Corinthians 6:2 (NIV) reads, “I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation,” or as The Living Bible translates this, “Right now God is ready to welcome you. Today he is ready to save you.”
If you’re not where you want to be, today is the day that you can be.
A simple and heartfelt prayer of, “God, help me. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I commit myself to you from this day forward,” will get you on the right path.
If you have just said this prayer or want more information feel free to write us at sansoochinovalley.com.
Until the next time, “God bless and protect you.”
