100% Character

I'm a big follower of Dave Ramsey's financial advice. I think the most important thing I learned was that it matters more who you are than how much you make. In the Financial Peace University classes, Dave liked to say that personal was 20% knowledge and 80% behavior. Funny thing, it turns out that behavior is 100% character.

Jesus used the example of tree and fruit. A good tree produces good fruit. A bad tree produces bad fruit. If we take fruit as representing behavior, then the outcome of our behavior depends on our character that we put into it. Both trees may grow apples. One apple refreshes and nourishes. The other makes you vomit and wretch for hours. Same behavior. Different outcomes.

This means that the behavior is less important than the spirit that we put into it. Remember the famous verse from Samuel?

Man looks on the outside, but God looks at the heart. 

When I got divorced, a few people expressed disapproval when I linked it with housework. That's like saying the problem is with the apple. It is, and it isn't.

Things are unimportant. They are temporal. Easy replaced. Housework, and apples, are unimportant. Does that mean you should go around eating bad apples that make you sick? Well, no. The problem isn't apples. A bad orange makes you just as sick. The problem stems from a bad tree (pun intended).

Even if I throw out all of the bad fruit this year, guess what happens next year? To carry the analogy, there is now a tree producing nothing usable taking nutrients, space, and other resources from trees that actually do the orchard some good. What happens to the offending tree? You cut it down, burn the wood because of the toxins, burn out the stump, and replace it.

That's exactly how Jesus concludes His word picture. Judgement is not about the things we did. It is based on the spirit of the person who did them.