So,
my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ that you might
belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we
might bear fruit to God. Romans 7:40
When I was a young Christian I
viewed bearing fruit as if I was the new gunslinger in town. The purpose of the
Great Commission was to face down the unbeliever at the OK Corral and see how
many notches I could put on my belt, or perhaps on my Bible. Listening to some
people speak about winning souls made it seem we were bounty hunters always
wary of spotting our prey everywhere we went and ready to bring them in to the
sheriff.
Then came a period of uncertainty.
Perhaps I was not a very good Christian (maybe not one at all), because I
couldn't go to meeting and brag about the souls I saved like some others seemed
to do constantly and continuously. Perhaps I was like autumn leaves
without fruit, twice dead.
How ignorant and arrogant was I. It
is not the souls I save that constitute my fruit. It can't be, because I can't
save souls at all. I couldn't save my own soul, what makes me ever think I
could save yours? No man can save another's soul, not I, not you, not Billy
Graham in his heyday.
Only God can save a soul. All we
can do is tell them so they hear and if they believe we can disciple them. We
do that; we have done what we can. So put away the six-gun and forget the
notches. If you are bragging on how many souls you've saved you have lost
yourself in pride and self-acclamation.
But
when [John the Baptist] saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where
he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to
flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I
tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The
ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce
good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Matthew 3:7-10
But what is this fruit we might
bear to God? I mean, this sounds serious when every tree that does not produce
good fruit will be cut down and burned. I certainly want to be a fruit bearer,
but what kind of fruit?
We are told in Galatians 5:22-23,
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."
I will tell you at this point of my
Christian life I have at least the blossoms of all these. I will say some are
actual fruit, not fully shaped or ripe, but recognizable.
Shall I also tell you how hard I
have worked to cultivate these beginnings of fruit? About all my selfless
labor, my hours of concentrated effort? Not likely, for what I have in fruit is
not my doing at all. I'm so likely to allow a weed to grow to choke me off from
the vine, so prone to forget the water my fruit needs or too easily distracted
by the "fruit for death" my flesh once bore.
Yet, when I am lured to those old
dried up prunes, then I remember the world is watching and I am now bound to
display healthy fruit.
For
you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of
light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness
and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the
fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to
mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light
becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it
is said:
"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and
Christ will shine on you." Ephesians 5:8-14
Our fruit reflects light into the
darkness of the world. The light we reflect is the light of God through Jesus
Christ. If we have no fruit to provide that reflection, then we must question
our Christianity.
So how do we assure our fruit will
grow and develop? How to we get the Fruits of the Spirit? Exactly like the
pumpkins in the illustration with this post. We are not the fruit, we are the
branches on which it grows and in order for the branch to live and bear fruit
it must be attached to the vine. Our fruit will not grow and could shrivel and
die if we do not keep in constant contact with the vine, and what is the vine?
"I
[Jesus
Christ] am the
true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that
bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that
it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have
spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit
by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you
remain in me.
"I
am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will
bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not
remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such
branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me
and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be
my disciples.
"As
the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you
obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's
commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in
you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I
have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for
his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you
servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I
have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have
made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you
to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you
whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other. John 15:1-17
Trust and obey the Lord and your
garden will blossom.
Illustration was taken by the
author at Monticello, Virginia, September 17, 2007
