Genesis 1:25
God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
If we mix our spiritual lives with the world, the result is something very strange—an aberration of what we should be instead of what God intended.
Horticulturists tell us that if a portion of the root or stem of a fruit tree is transplanted, upon growth, the new sapling will have all of the characteristics of the mother tree.
Scientists have also learned that if the stem of a foreign tree is planted with the root of the mother tree, the new sapling will have the physical qualities and productivity of the rootstock, but it will also have some characteristics of the foreign tree.
God created a garden in Eden and placed into it various forms of life, including two saplings of humankind, Adam and Eve. They were born of the rootstock of the Holy Spirit and were the fruit of creation. God himself warned them to avoid mixing the purity of their spiritual roots with that of the evil represented by the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Today, many have allowed their knowledge to contaminate their spiritual purity.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God and intermingled the perfection of the Holy Spirit with the imperfection of Satan, producing a creature that had the same physical appearance as Adam but now had the spiritual nature of the Devil.
How strange the ungodly must appear to God; they are members of the body of Christ but behave like Satan.
We must strive to live for Christ and him alone, resist temptation, and give him our best each and every day. In purity, he will see us as we should be, not as strange fruit.
Black Perspective:
The notion of the "fruit tree" analogy underlines the significance of resisting assimilation that dilutes one's authentic identity. In a society that has often imposed Eurocentric ideals, as African-Americans we must learn to stand firm in our cultural distinctiveness, embracing our roots and rejecting pressures to conform.