There’s an old phrase most of us are familiar with: The Nut Doesn’t Fall Too Far From the Tree. We use that saying to describe extreme behaviors.
Here are two illustrations:
Nutty Example #1:
A child, whether in good ways or bad, has become a carbon copy of his or her parent. We see this in school, where after a parent-teacher conference, the teacher confides to a coworker, “Ah, I understand little Debbie, now.”
The behaviors we see in the parent repeat themselves in the child.
Nutty Example #2:
Business dealings tend to be whatever people can get away with. We see this in politics, where the headlines read: “Six-Term Senator Ousted for Abuse of Power.”
A politician is a politician, and we expect him or her to be driven by power or guile.
God expects better of us in our Christian walk.
Romans 12:2 instructs us:
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
How can we do this? In the previous verse, Paul adjures us to:
“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
If we choose to follow after Jesus, the Eternal Son of the Most High God, our nut will not fall far from the tree. We will be Jesus nuts, looking, acting, and tasting just like him.
We must be careful, though. We don’t want to get under the wrong tree. In John 8:39-47, Jesus is under intense scrutiny from a group of argumentative Jews. They said, “Abraham is our father.”
Jesus’ reply was priceless. “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.”
Whose works are we doing? Are we doing Jesus’ works? After all, the nut doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
In Verse 44, Jesus says to the braggadocios Jews, “You are of your father the devil.”
Jesus said a lot more in this passage, but these seven words are the crux of his message. He was saying, in essence, “You are all nuts, and when you are cracked open, you will look, act, and taste just like your father the devil.”
Ouch! Perhaps it’s time to look carefully at what sort of nut we are. When we are put under pressure, and we are cracked open, who comes out? Jesus or the devil?
After all, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.
If we’re going to be nuts, let’s be nuts for Jesus.
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Code: FGO.I.15.14b.vp