Let's break down the ideas behind Matthew 7:17-19, which talks about how a lousy root can only produce lousy fruit:

What, then, is a lousy root? We know it by its fruit. What is the fruit that exemplifies a lousy root? It is a person trying to be like God. Trying to be better depends on the root suffering lack.

The tree of trying produces all types of effort. Adam and Eve had all Father God wanted them to have, but they wanted more. They ate of the fruit of the root of getting to gain and produced a mind that was dead to the Spirit of other love and became alive to a flesh full of fear, guilt, and shame.

Trying to gain, they lost what they had. They exchanged total for lack.

Jesus said, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

The soul attached to the flesh is death. Death is a mind captured by the flesh. This is the downside of roots and fruits. Tomorrow, we will look at the good root and its fruit.