“Throw it away”
“ That’s gross”
“It’s useless”
From our perception, we feel it is useless. Maybe a worm got into the apple and made it rotten? Could a worm be sin in our lives that makes us rotten? What if this rotten apple was in the kingdom of God? Do we consider people like Judas as a rotten apple?
Maybe we would from our perception. What if Judas was a baby during the time Jesus was a baby and Herod had all the male babies killed. What if Judas had been that one male baby that was killed? Would have there been a rotten apple? Would there have been one to have betrayed Jesus? Would have Jesus been crucified? We tend to act out in a reaction of something being negative and on impulse we try to shun or drive away the stench that is under our noses. There is one who has turned those rotten apples into use. Christ.
Ever felt your life was full of rotten apples? You think how I can ever turn back into a good apple. It’s impossible to do. Notice the first words in those thoughts. “HOW can I ever?” We can’t. Let’s change this negative view around. What good does a rotten apple bring?
You may not be able to make an edible apple pie. The apple brings life and it may be rotten. If you use it in your land, then it becomes like fertilization, and it becomes stimulating to the plants. The plants grow and it produces more food or apples. Sure, we may think Judas was a rotten apple, but he was used as fertilizer in the use of the kingdom to grow love for those who feel rotten.
How often do we think we are bad or people who have mistreated us as rotten apples? How many times have we misspoken and just wanted to chuck them aside? Don’t feel rotten. Sometimes we have to remove the worm (sin). We have to believe in a God, who is the God of the impossible and to make all things into the possible.
God can change your life around to a positive. Sometimes, in life things seem to be bleak. Losing a job recently seemed to forecast a shadow of the unknown. Did it seem like a barrel of rotten apples? Yes, it seemed to me, there were rotten apples. I could have sulked in the cider of it all and become bitter. However, I chose to look to God to change the situation into a positive apple pie. I have a great supportive church family, a great wife and a better job than the one I had before. Those were all the ingredients’ that I needed in my life and the limited income (oven) baked me into something better than were I was. A new person and refined into something better.
I realized I became too comfortable in a setting that I thought God wanted me in. That’s the good part of this. What I thought was the stench of a rotten apple, He chose to pluck me out of the barrel (my comfort level) and use me somewhere else. What about the unknown? He tested me. We triumphed. The apple pie is in the oven. Salvation smells great.
At the moment, we may feel we are in a rotten or in an impossible situation and be like Judas. We can begin to think upon giving up because things are looking like the impossible (rotten) and there is no way that it could become the possible. David wrote that we need to sit patiently and wait on the Lord (Ps. 37:7). Sometimes, we have to become rotten in order for something better to blossom. Allowing it all to be possible, and it isn’t done by our hand, but by His hand. Three weeks I was unemployed. Jesus was in the grave three days and it seemed to be rotten to mankind at the time. However, God, rose His Son from what seemed to be in the barrel of impossible rotten apples into something better. I’m ready for some apple pie! Want a slice?
