Coming from Jerusalem, Jesus and His disciples passed by a fig tree they had encountered just the day before. Only the tree’s appearance was vastly different to what it had been on their first encounter of it. On their journey into Jerusalem, the tree had attracted Jesus to itself because it had a full covering of leaves, indicating it was producing fruit. However, under closer inspection, there was no fruit to be found on it. The tree was giving false hope of a promise. Jesus fully expected the tree to have fruit on it and was disappointed when He found none. All leaves, no fruit. All expectation, no satisfaction. That tree was not doing what it was ‘pretending’ to do. It was rebelling against God’s purpose for it. When Jesus spoke to its unfruitfulness, His words immediately went to work. The ‘rebellious’ tree became withered from its roots so that it would never be able to be deceitful again. According to the Word, we have been given a brand-new life in Christ Jesus. We have been blessed with everything needed to produce a full and fruitful life in Christ. However, when there are areas of our lives that still hold evidence of our old nature because we have not allowed our minds to be renewed by God’s Word concerning them – they must be dealt with. Not just the symptoms, but the roots must be eradicated from our lives. This happens when we acknowledge they are not in submission to God’s will for our lives and are not in agreement with who we are in Christ. We simply confess them to the Lord, repent and renounce them and accept the cleansing work of the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:9). Then we immediately renew our minds to who we are in Christ Jesus, believe it to be our reality and speak that truth over those areas of our lives. Faith gets to the root of the problem and pulls it right out – so we never have to visit that place of rebellion or baroness again.