Jesus teaches us in Matthew 12,

Make a tree good and its fruit will be good,

or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad,

for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

How do we identify fruit as good or bad

when it's being deceptively packaged as kind, loving, or helpful?

And as Christians, how can we prove faithful

and bearing good fruit in our own lives?

Welcome to the She Proves Faithful Podcast, episode number 243, truth and encouragement to live

gospel-centered lives every day. I'm your host, Lauren Lushak.

Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren, and I'm so grateful that you are joining me on today's

episode of the podcast. I'm really glad that you're here. And thank you so much right off the bat

to all my supporters that give every month to make this podcast possible. I'm extremely grateful for you,

and it's just so encouraging to hit publish knowing that people are helping me get the word out

about the Lord, about Scripture, the authority of Scripture, and about Jesus saving us from our

sin so that we might have eternal life with him. Today I'm talking about

bearing good fruit, but also how do we recognize when fruit is bad, but it's kind of being

deceptively marketed as good fruit where somebody's like, hey, you should eat this apple. It's

delicious and really it's poison. How do we recognize that?

How do we look at fruit that somebody says is loving or kind or honest? And it's not those things

at all. How do we recognize bad fruit that's being packaged as good? And then also how can we be

faithful and bearing good fruit ourselves as Christians, as believers?

...