My husband collected some fruit from our garden and brought it to the table. I hadn’t seen the tree from where the fruit originated and looking at this strange, bumpy, indeterminable fruit, we agreed the only way to discover what it was would be to cut it open.

It turns out that this large, lumpy, kinda ugly fruit was in fact a lemon but even after cutting it open, it was only when we tasted the fruit that we knew what it was.

Too often we go through life judging fruit, things, and even people, based on appearance. Or even, based on whether they behave how we have predetermined they should. If you’ve been on the receiving end of someone else’s judgement then this assessment and assassination of your existence feels pretty rotten.

But take heart, Jesus knows.

He was “a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.” (Isaiah 53:2-3 MSG).

The very people who had been waiting for his arrival didn’t even recognise him as the Messiah, his words and actions were harshly judged and he was rejected by many for not fitting their predetermined mould of what the Messiah should and would be.

Thing is – we’re all walking around as lumpy, bumpy, kinda ugly looking fruit – no offence – but we’re broken people, living in a broken world. We say and do things that don’t sound or look like they should as followers of Jesus. But all is not lost. Regardless of our external failings, there is hope of being transformed from the inside out.

Had I seen the tree from which the lemon originated I might have known that despite its unusual appearance it was, in fact, a lemon. If we want people to see the good fruit that’s inside of us then we need to stick close to the tree. It’s never too late to be grafted into the vine and it’s as we come close to Jesus, as we abide in Him, that He will produce good fruit in us (John 15).