As an American, my national tree is the oak tree. There are many species of oak, some deciduous and some evergreen. These oaks produce thirty-eight different kinds of fruit known as acorns.

But oaks are prone to a disease called heart rot. This is a fungal disease that affects the tree’s central core. As a result, the infected tree slowly deteriorates as it rots from the inside out. Sometimes, the tree looks strong and healthy from the outside, but soon it will fall, revealing its actual, dead state. Even the acorns are rotten inside.

Similarly, Jesus speaks of true faith and true believers as contrasted with false faith and false believers (Matthew 7:19-20). The false believers are like diseased trees that produce bad fruit. Jesus says we can recognize people by their works—good and bad. Nevertheless, God will judge sin and cut down and burn all the dead trees. All of us have rotten hearts and are dead in our sins when we defy the holy and just God.

Jesus, however, always provides hope for the broken and rotten heart. He tells His followers that He is the vine, and they are the branches. When we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit. We are no longer dead trees because our branches are connected to the vine: the Lord Jesus.

Jesus’s roots hold living waters. Only from Him comes eternal life, and the branch will never wither away from the everlasting vine. In love, He laid down His life for us—His friends.

You can be a dead tree or a living branch connected to the everlasting vine. Only through Jesus, the everlasting vine, can you produce good fruit. Be a branch.