EATING FROM THE TREE OF LIFE: DISCERNING BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL written by Uniqua Pirjo-Lena Hardy

A while back I asked God why eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was such a bad thing, since he had a few lines earlier stated that every plant and every tree with fruit was for food.. and all was good.

But then, I noticed a detail I’ve never picked up before: he didn’t say that all trees were good for food. He said all trees with specifically SEED-bearing fruit would be for food.

The only logical conclusion is that the fruit of the tree of knowledge had no seeds. Wow.

We know that when we consume fruit with seeds, those seeds fall to the ground and new trees will sprout up with more fruit.

Fruit that contains seeds contains life, it keeps on giving, it multiplies, and it keeps producing after its own kind.

This leads to life abundant for all.

Where there is no shortage or lack, relationships flourish and there is healing and wholeness for all. Where ever there is more than enough to go around, every person is filled and satisfied, and love is present. In love, one gives to another, because there is an infinite supply. The tree of life unites. It has 1 fruit and 1 outcome: life. In life, we find eternal relationship.

On the other hand, we have a huge problem if the only natural or spiritual food we have is seedless fruit. Seedless fruit leads to famine, hardship, eventual depletion, and ultimately death. It is consumed once and then it is gone. It has no continuance, it has no life in itself.

It leads to the deadly principle that the world seems to be built on: survival of the fittest. Devour the other in order to save yourself. The world has embodied this principle in every way possible: physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And it’s no wonder.

When there is a limited amount of fruit (because there are no seeds to bring forth more fruit), you have to eventually either consume the other or be consumed. Your spiritual food source becomes everyone and everything around you. You have to pull nourishment from the people you love — sacrifice the well-being of others for your own nourishment. It’s the only way to survive in death. Although, the truth is that no one really ends up surviving. We just come up with delusions and avoidance tactics in an effort to prolong the inevitable outcome.

We see separation even in the very nature of the fruit of the tree of knowledge: there is one fruit consumed, but it leads to two outcomes- good and evil. Instead of having seeds that lead to multiplication after its own kind, it is almost like the fruit contains a parasite, and once consumed, the parasite takes over the life that already exists and begins to rapidly twist it, corrupt it, and divide it up. You end up with a perceived separation between good and evil, but in reality, they both are the outcome of the one deadly fruit: knowledge instead of life.

Worst of all, we all know what is good and right deep down… so there is a flood of shame and guilt associated with taking from others to fill up ourselves (which is really just feeding the parasite).

And so we end up trying to mask up and hide our vampire-like manipulative ways… sometimes we even find ourselves calling the evil in us “love” and disguising the rotten intentions and actions as “light”. The seedless fruit leads to limitation and lack. Life cannot be sustained. And so darkness begins to swallow up the light.

Until….. Jesus comes along, the Word of God made flesh, the Son of God, the seed that came into this lifeless and disastrous world to defeat the cancerous problem that began to take over life at the fall of mankind.

He came to give back access to the Tree of Life through himself. He illuminated the lie of survival of the fittest by sacrificing himself so that all could be made alive. This wasn’t only through the crucifixion, but he came into utter darkness and experienced separation and all of the hardships of the world that come with it, he emptied and humbled himself continually, grew, and matured through sufferings throughout his whole life.

All of this was in order to overcome it all and make a new man in himself. He killed the parasite in himself (sin nature), overcame every work of darkness and death, and shined light on the truth. He reversed every curse and stronghold that came from eating seedless fruit and feeding the parasitic sin nature.

Then finally, on the cross, he quite literally gave up his life for the world — allowed for his perfect, set apart spirit to be poured through his blood onto the earth and then breathed into us.

He said, unless a seed dies and goes into the ground, it cannot multiply. He is that holy seed that went into the ground and multiplied greatly. It is through that seed of light being formed in us, taking root in us, and growing in us that we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness (tree of knowledge with its seedless fruit corrupting the mind) to experience a new kind of reality in the kingdom of light (tree of life). He overcame it all, and revealed the perfect love of God that not only saves but transforms… new life, new spirit, new name, new breath, and a new everlasting supply of seed-filled fruit for food.