“…casting down imaginations, and every stronghold rising up against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ”(2 Corinthians 10:5).
An underlying principle of the kingdom is that the fruit of a tree is determined by the tree; we cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles; that much is made clear in the teachings of the Lord Jesus during His earthly sojourn. Applying the same logic to myself, I understand that the fruit of my life must be determined by the kind of life I live; that is, my life is the tree from the fruit of which, my life is revealed. This is sobering stuff indeed!
What absorbs the conscious interest of a man, and his subconscious thoughts, will inevitable determine and, at the same time reveal, what kind of a man he is. There is a secret principle at work here; where a man sinks his roots will decide what fruit he is going to bear and the sort of fruit he bears reveals what sort of a man (or tree) he is.
We are told to examine the spirits (1 John 4:1) and we should apply that injunction firstly to ourselves. What do I think of when I am free to think at will? To whence do my thoughts turn in moments of leisure? What fields of thought give me the most pleasure to let my mind wander in? To what does my imagination continually turn? If we can ask ourselves these questions and answer them honestly, we may discover what type of persons we are and what type of fruit we will bear.
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