Good Fruits LLC

05/06/2023

"Rejoice in the Lord always! Let me say it again, rejoice! Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7

One of my favorite sections from a small but powerful book in the Bible, Philippians. 4 small chapters of gold. I hope you dig some up!

Have a blessed day y'all!

04/26/2023

How to read the Bible - Part 2

Reading the Bible is a new habit that God gave me that I have grown to enjoy. However, there are times I come across a passage, and it doesn't sit right with me or makes me feel confused or even mad at the situation presented or even how impossible it sounded that anyone could do so much to be a child a God.

In hopes that you stay in His word, here are a couple of things I want to share that has helped me get through some of those 'hard' spots in the Bible. Those things are, and thank you once again Bible Project for being a major guide for me to this understanding:

1. The Bible is meditation literature
2. The Bible is meant to be read in community or with one another

First is that the Bible is meditation literature. Not just any literature to meditate to, but some of the deepest, most dense, sprinkled with some common sense. It is meditation literature that may take all of our lives to fully comprehend. As much as it is meditation literature it is also wisdom literature and 'all scripture is good for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.' Even though the Bible tries to plainly state this deep wisdom, I believe it takes time to chew on the word, slowly processing the wise concepts, living precepts and the firm, steadfast, and true teachings of our God. Meditating on His word is crucial, and I believe necessary to understanding the Bible.

The next important thing to note, and it is almost as important as the first, but the Bible is meant to be read together. Alone we are succombed to our own thoughts. Sometimes this can be destructive and why we need one another to encourage and build up each other in love. When going through some hard and convicting parts of the Bible, we need our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to understand the meaning and overcome any hinderance that we have placed on ourselves. I know we bring a lot of our own baggage to interpretting the Bible. Let us help each other carry the load and burden of this world so that we may have joy and compassion for all of His creation through the living and breathing word of our God.

I share this in hopes that it may help someone persist and continue to read the Bible, because He will do a great work through it, in you. I hope you have a blessed day!

Meditation Literature:
https://bibleproject.com/podcast/how-read-bible-part-6-jewish-scripture-meditation-vs-modern-meditation/

Public reading of scripture, couldn't find the podcast I heard, but they have a video now:
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/public-reading-scripture/

The public reading of Scripture was an important ancient practice among God's people. And it's a practice that can still powerfully impact us today.

03/27/2023

Hebrew/Greek Word Shorts - Bible

This is another cool english word that was transliterated from another language. The word bible comes from the greek work biblos, meaning book. However, when you hear 'Holy Bible', do you think that this is actually 66 books in 1? So we may need to call it 'Holy Bibles', since each book, is a seperate scoll or bible in this case. It was neat to me to hear that, and Holy Bible works too, since another transliteration, from the same site, renders it from the greek word biblia, or books. Either way, it was meant to be together as one, in this age and time for us to learn God's wisdom from. Just neat for me to know where that word comes from now. Have a blessed day!

Meaning 'book'
https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/explore-the-bible/what-does-bible-mean.html

Meaning 'books'
https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/bible/ #:~:text=Bible%2C%20the%20English%20form%20of%20the%20Greek%20name,came%20gradually%20into%20use%20in%20our%20English%20language.

The Bible is the best-selling book of all time and is widely considered to be some of the finest literature ever written. The influence of the Bible is unmistakable. So where does the word "Bible" come from, and what does it actually mean?

03/16/2023

The Kingdom of Heavan is like yeast?

What? The kingdom is what again, like yeast? Yes in Matthew 3:33 our Lord Jesus said, 'The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that someone took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” This is an interesting concept and biologically, yeast has an interesting way with flour and almost becomes a part of the flour, once mixed. So what can we potentially learn from this, the Kingdom of Heavan being like yeast? Well I think mainly it helps us in understanding why you may not get the bible's teachings first time around. Or also, I think it teaches us how to interact with one another, especially when it comes to belief systems and showing others ours. I don't know, but things about yeast and then put these with the thought, how the idea of the Kindom of Heavan works:

1. You can't force the yeast to become one with the flour. You have to work it little by little, gently otherwise you will kill the yeast.
2. You have to let the dough 'rest' and set with the yeast. After working it into the flour, you have to let it rest, to sink in.
3. Then finally you have to bake or put it to the 'fire'. This may be a way to test our thoughts, our faith, and our hearts in God see if we will rise, as if waiting for the dough to rise in the oven.

To sum those up, in order to show any one the kingdom or understand what it is yourself, we have to work at understanding it. This is a slow process, because some of God's Word cuts us pretty deep and the reason, when we are seeking His truth, we do it gently. Then after working to understand it, you have to meditate and rest in the Word. It takes time to work its way into our body, heart, and soul. Finally, I believe understanding what the Kingdom of Heavan is takes time to bake in your head. In this part you could almost think of it as going through the trials of life, getting things wrong, but learning from it. This can seem like a burning fire to us, but at the end you get to enjoy some delicious homemade bread.

Ha! I don't know but thought a fun meditation.

I hope you have a blessed day!

03/02/2023

What are these Laws about - Part 1

In this post I do not intend to go into any individual commandments, the 10 commandments or the 613 laws that our God, Yahweh, ordained for the Israelite nation, which is just a superset of all those. I just want to help simplify for others as I have had to do for myself, what are God's intentions for us, as a people in any age, day, or society. This simplification hopefully helps others, especially when you read all the wild and crazy laws spelled out through Exodus into Deuteronomy.

Again, in this one, I want to turn to our Lord Jesus Christ to get to a simple and straightforward answer. I will go into deeper mediation of some of the laws later, because as the book of 2 Timothy states 'All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work'. (2 Tim 3:16-17 NIV). However, in this case, I want to just state what our Lord said to the Pharisees when they were testing him with a question of, which is the greatest law? He said it plainly how to interpret the law and which was the greatest by saying in the Gospel of Matthew to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hand on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40 NIV)

Thats what the laws mean, if you had to boil them down. Use this understanding when you are searching for the answers to some of the interesting and hard to swallow laws of the Old Testament. Have a blessed day!

References:

The613commandments.com- The 613 commandments as enumerated by the Rambam.

02/23/2023

Words are powerful - part 1

In this post I wanted to share something I thought was truly fascinating on how our own experiences and even our words help shape our biases toward the world. For instance, the word gruntle. What do you think when you hear that word? Just hearing it you may think, that has to mean something like upset or unsettled. Mainly because we all have heard of the word 'disgruntled' all our lives and could easily associate that to gruntle as well. Which disgruntled does mean, per webster, unhappy or annoyed. So when I use word gruntle, would you think 'to put in good humor'. Or as webster uses in a sentence:

'were gruntled with a good meal and good conversation'.

Now when you first heard gruntle, I am sure you thought something negative and not a positive thing. I know I did. Even knowing that when you add 'dis-' prefix negates a meaning of a word, it just didn't sound right that gruntle would be a good thing at all.

To sum this up, words are powerful (more on this in later posts) and can frame our perception of everything. Even when the word means something good, our experiences, what we learned or were trained, tarnishes the way we perceive the word. As opposed to hearing a word like gruntle and thinking negative, next time try to not label the word at all. It just is. I feel this gets us closer to thinking more positive things throughout our days or at the very least taking every experience like new, even as a child. Thank you and I hope you have a blessed day!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disgruntled
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gruntle

to put in a good humor… See the full definition

02/15/2023

How to Read the Bible Part 1

Not an easy question, and I won't say that I completely know myself. Luckily we don't have to know and if we just look to our Lord Jesus Christ, He has given us a way to read and intepret the bible. In this first post on how to read the Bible, I am just going to get right to the answer that the bible shows us and leave it at that.

I think BibleHub does a great job in their mission statement summing up the Holy Bible for us, by stating that they 'believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus.' [https://bibleproject.com/about/] I love the succintness of that. How every letter of the Bible you read, you can reflect, 'How does this lead to Jesus?'.

I also believe that our Lord Jesus Christ gave us a great perspective to take on the Bible, especially when it pertains to the Messiah 'in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms.' in Luke 24:44, and then continues to say that when you look at this part of the Bible, and it is speaking of our Messiah, that 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and in His name repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem.' in verses 46-47.

How beautiful, but I realize how hard it is to read the Bible and think that alone. With all the weird sacrificial procedures or what makes us unholy if we eat certain meats, etc, it can be difficult to see this truth. However, we don't have to be mislead by anyone on how to read the bible and can now look at it the way Jesus wants us to and try to find the wisdom behind the sacrifices and laws with the perspective that it all tells of why we needed Jesus our Christ to save us. I will try and expand on this more in future posts, but I hope at least that this helps a little when reading through the Old Testament and not to get discouraged by all the 'weird' things going on there. Not one letter of the law will be stricken out (Matth 5:18) and the whole bible is breathed by God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).

My goal from this is to get people more comfortable reading the Old Testament and not being scared of what it says but knowing how to frame it when you come across some hard scripture, using our truly wise and loving King, Jesus Christ. Again, I hope this helps and that everyone has a blessed day!

https://biblehub.com/luke/24.htm

1On the first day of the week,a very early in the morning, the women came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. 2They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4While they were puzzling over this, suddenly two men i...

02/09/2023

Hebrew/Greek Short Word Study - Ruach++

Greek word - pnuema

I wanted to add to the post about the short word study over Ruach (unable to link to, but it was on 25 Jan 23). Something really cool is that there is a Greek equivelant to this word. As we learned in that post, ruach can mean spirit, breathe or wind and the greek word, pneuma, also means the very same thing. I thought that was fascinating to see an equivalent to what I thought was such a unique representation of God's spirit or breathe inside us and that the ancient greek language had the same word represented. How cool and I wanted to share.

What does it mean for man to have a spirit? How does God's Spirit interact with man's spirit?

02/04/2023

Ever Really Know?

Will we ever really know that our faith is justified?
Will we ever really know how little faith we have?
God proves Himself true in creation
Why can't we all see?
Why can we all just sit still and be?
Why does my heart yearn to find a purpose?
Why do I run to it when You placed it inside me?
When You sewed me inside my mother's womb?
You wrote Your law and Your will on my heart.
Your law is wisdom, Your will is good
Please oh Lord give me eyes to see
So that I may not waiver in my faith
So that I may be reminded and persevere to the end
So that I may be Your Son's servant
And bear Your good life giving fruits to the end

Not by my will Lord, but Yours be done,
All things for Your glory, honor, and praise.

01/25/2023

Hebrew Word Shorts - Ruach

I wanted to share a very interesting and enlightening word study for me. Learning Hebrew or Greek can seem overwhelming, but so would eating an entire elephant. Instead of thinking you can do it one sitting, imagine eating the elephant just one bite at a time, learning a little one day at a time. In this case learning Hebrew or Greek, one word at a time.

Today I wanted to share one of the first Hebrew word that I learned, 'ruach', which is pronounced, (roo'-akh). Like many Hebrew words that I have learned so far, they seem to have multiple meanings. In this case, the word ruach can mean, wind, breath or spirit, and is used often to reference God's spirit or our own spirit given to us from God.

The reason I wanted to share this word is because I found a lot of insight and astounding beauty in just thinking about how these words relate together. For instance, our breathe that is inside us, signifying to a degree our life or life source, is from God, just as the spirit that God placed inside us. Have you heard the sayings, 'their breath left them', 'dying breathe', 'death gasp', or even the term 'death rattle.' Well, if we just think of our very breathe, that somehow is within us all, but comes from outside of us, that we pull and push into our lungs, that gives oxygen to the rest of our body, can easily be just a representation of the spirit in all us. This helps put in perspective a supernatural thing (spirit) into a natural phenomenon as common as our own breath.

So we have the breath inside of us to remind us of God's presence in our lives every day, but we also have His wind that blows 'from the corners of the earth.' I love imagining God's spirit breathing through and across landscapes and trees as the wind, swaying objects to and fro, almost making an inhaling and exhaling motion of all life on earth. This meditation really helps me always remember that God is with us, in all parts and aspects of our lives. If it's not shown by the wind blowing through the air, then your very breathe in your mouth should remind us all of God's hand in our lives through His ruach sustaining us all, every day.

Have a blessed week!

References -
https://www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-terms/what-is-the-meaning-of-the-hebrew-word-ruach.html
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7307.htm
https://bibleproject.com/podcast/holy-spirit-part-2/

What does it mean for man to have a spirit? How does God's Spirit interact with man's spirit?

01/18/2023

You will know it by its Fruits

How many times have you felt upset or mad about something, that after thinking about it later was such a trivial thing? How many times have you woken up 'on the wrong side of the bed' and the entire day seemed to be shaped by how the morning began? What is that feeling? Where does it come from? This has been a thought of mine for some time and I hope to go into this subject more in the future. In this instance, I wanted to share one little aspect of 'testing the fruits' in every part of our lives and I wanted to start this topic off by testing the fruits of our thoughts that seem to come within.

Where does anger come from? Jealousy? Do you think from God? Our Lord says in Matthew 7:16, 'By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?'. What is the difference between a grape vine and a thorn bush, outside of biological genus? Simply put, one gives life giving fruit and the other, well thorns.

So what does all this nonsense have to do with your thoughts? I believe even our thoughts bear 'fruits' and is part of the image of God, that our Father created and blessed us with. These fruits can bear life giving grapes in the form of love, joy, peace, forbearance, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) or they can produce fruits of the flesh like anger, jealousy, selfishness, dissension, envy, fornication and the like (Galatians 5:19-20). Make sure to test your thoughts and know where it comes from. Is it from His spirit that he gave us or the flesh that our spirit resides in? If you are angry, jealous or even not wanting to be around others because of an argument or misconception, know that is not from God. Also know, with Gods help we can overcome these feelings. Sometimes getting yourself out of the situtation is exactly what is needed. Even our Lord went off on His own to be with our Father in heavan in prayer, from the very start of His ministry (Matthew 1:35 and parallel at Luke 4:42 - resource https://www.provenway.org/sins/how-many-times-did-jesus-pray-alone-2.html).

I say all this to convey, test even our own thoughts and recognize where it comes from. If the flesh, then we can overcome and bear life giving fruit to ourselves and everyone else around us. This takes time, first to even recognize, then begin to divert and then finally overwhelm those feelings with those that come from love that we all want to give and be given ourselves. By loving one another, I believe we are truly giving His life bearing fruit to one another. This takes working every day, but in Him all things are possible. Have a blessed week!

01/10/2023

Waking. What do my eyes really see?
Awoken? To see only love around me?
Please let Your love emanate through me.
Please Lord permeate everything i see.
Let me become everything You want me to be.