The Candy-Flavored Pop Factory had fallen in the Mississippi River and was floating away! Leapfrog knew what to do, he said, “We need to catch up with the factory! Everybody, try to make our surfboard go faster!” He immediately laid down and stuck his feet off the end of the surfboard and began to kick his feet faster than a dish of soup! The surfboard immediately went faster than a doorknob! Toenail lay down on the other end of the surfboard and stuck his feet off the front and began to kick his feet faster than a butterfly in a jet engine. The surfboard came to a complete stop and the factory went farther away! Trixie stuck her head into the water and blew bubbles out of her nose!
Then it happened! The Candy-Flavored Pop factory disappeared under the water! There was a loud gurgling noise, and suddenly there was a huge whirlpool right where the factory had sunk! The surfboard began to go around and around the whirlpool, faster and faster! Toenail’s eyes were spinning around in circles, Leapfrog’s hair was getting curly, and Trixie’s fingernail polish came off! Faster and faster, they went around the whirlpool, it looked like they were going to get sucked down into the middle of the whirlpool and drown!
Then it happened! A bottle of pop came flying up from the middle of the whirlpool! Leapfrog made a stupendous jump into the air and caught the bottle! When he came back down, the surfboard bounced and flew up in the air with Leapfrog, Toenail, and Trixie still on it! There was an airplane flying by and they landed on the front of the plane and began rolling toward the back of the plane! They rolled off the back end of the plane and landed on the top of a roller coaster! They went screaming down a steep hill and then up and down and up and down! They rode the entire roller coaster, right to the end! When they got to the end of the roller coaster they could not stop, so they rolled past all the people waiting in line, and went on the rollercoaster again, and again, and again. Three hours later they finally managed to get off the roller coaster by taking a left turn at the top of the highest hill! They flew through the air once again and landed by a fence!
The fence was very tall and had only two gates in it. One gate was wide, and a lot of people were going in that gate. The other gate was so narrow that only a one person could go through at a time. A sign by the wide gate said, ‘Come in here for good things to eat and a lot of fun!’ A sign by the narrow gate said, “Come in here if you want to get the secret prize!’
Leapfrog looked at the sign by the narrow gate and said, “I wonder if the secret prize could be the Recipe for Candy-Flavored Pop? I think we should go through the narrow gate and find out!”
Trixie replied, “We will have time later to see what is through the narrow gate, I’m hungry now. I want to go through the wide gate and get some good food and have fun! Let’s do this first!” They decided to follow Trixie’s advice, and they went through the wide gate. The first thing they saw was a huge tree that had popcorn on all its branches! Toenail loved popcorn, so he rushed up to that tree, rubbed both hands in the dirt (in case they were too clean) and grabbed a handful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth. Immediately he spit the popcorn out! He said, “This popcorn is not real, it is tastes like plastic that has been recycled from worm containers!” Leapfrog pointed out that he knew the popcorn was fake because popcorn does not grow on trees.
Leapfrog saw a tree that had big, juicy, red tomatoes on it. He ran to it and grabbed a tomato and sunk his teeth in that juicy tomato. It was one of the biggest surprises of his life! The tomato was not juicy; in fact, it had no juice at all! It was made from chalk and painted red to look like a real tomato! Of course, Trixie pointed out that tomatoes do not grow on trees either, they grow on bushes!
Then Trixie saw her absolute favorite! A tree covered with macaroni & cheese! The macaroni looked soft and hot, and the cheese was dripping off the tree! Trixie went running up to the tree, but she slipped on the cheese and fell face-first right into a big puddle of the cheese! She jumped up quickly and yelled, “This does not smell like cheese, it smells like paint!” Sure enough, the pieces of macaroni had been glued to the tree, and yellow paint that looked like melted cheese, had been put on the macaroni! Of course, macaroni & cheese does not really grow on trees either.
Our three super-heroes are hungry now, and they had figured out that all the food on the trees was fake, and they really were not having very much fun at all. In fact, a lot of people were laughing at them because they had tried to eat the fake food. They were walking slowly along, and they noticed another tree. This tree was tremendously huge and also big! It was covered with bright, red apples. Leapfrog, Toenail and Trixie were not going to embarrass themselves again, so they walked right past it. But they noticed a little boy that ran up to that tree and grabbed an apple off it! Leapfrog said, “That boy is going to look foolish when he bites into that fake apple!” Toenail said, “Let’s stay and watch, it will probably be funny, and we can laugh at him.” Trixie said, “Toenail! That is mean; we should not laugh at him, that will hurt his feelings! I am going to go and warn him about all the fake food!” Before Trixie had time to tell the boy anything, he bit into that big, red apple! And then it happened! There was a loud crunching noise; apple juice went flying in every direction, the boy jumped up and down, and yelled, and said, “This is the best apple I have ever eaten!” Leapfrog used his amazing, super-fast, awesome, genius-level intelligence and figured it out! He said, “Of course the apples are real, because apples really do grow on trees!” They all climbed that tree and picked and ate the best apples that they had ever eaten!
After they had finished eating, they noticed another tree. Leapfrog did not want to go look at this tree, he said, “Why bother looking at that tree; it probably has fake food on it. We need to go back and go through the narrow gate and see if we can find that secret prize, maybe it will be the secret recipe for Candy-Flavored Pop!” Trixie said, “We can just take a quick look, then we can go back to that narrow gate.” So, they went to look at the tree, it was a big pine tree; it did have something growing from its branches. When they got close, they saw that there was no food on this tree, every single branch on the pine tree was growing a pinewood derby car! They thought that this was the coolest thing that they had ever seen! They immediately each picked out two cars that they thought were the best. They decided to race the cars, but then Toenail had an idea! He said, “Why don’t we make this better than just a pinewood derby race? Why don’t we tie the pinewood derby cars to our feet, then we could race the cars and race each other at the same time, it would be like pinewood derby roller-skate cars!” Leapfrog said, “That sounds like a good idea, but if you lose the race, you will probably cry!” Toenail almost began to cry right then because he did not even want to think about losing the race, but Trixie now had a great idea. She said, “I know how to make sure that nobody loses the race! We need to……”
Application:
In the Bible in Matthew 7:17-21 Jesus says:
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
In these Bible verses Jesus compares fruit trees to people. In our story, Leapfrog, Toenail, and Trixie visited several trees that had fake food on them. The food looked good until they tried to eat it, then they found that the food was not really food.
Many people go to Church on Sunday or Wednesday night, and they pretend that they are believers in Jesus. Sometimes they fool everyone in the Church! The real test of a Christian is how they live their life when they are away from Church. Do they still live for Jesus when they are at school or with their families, or do they act and live totally different?
If a person lives for Jesus all the time wherever they are, that is the sign of a real Christian, just like the apples on the apple tree in the story were real apples. But, if a person is only pretending to be a Christian, then they are like those trees in the story that had popcorn, tomatoes, or macaroni & cheese on them, they are fake, not real!
Are you a real Christian or a fake Christian? If you are not sure, talk to Jesus about it today, and ask Him to come into your life, forgive you, and help you to live for Him all the time! Do it today!