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Are You Fruity?
By Bunny | April 12, 2010
John 15:8 says, “When you bear (produce) much fruit, My Father is honored and glorified, and you show and prove yourselves to be true followers of Mine.” In this verse, Jesus said that God is glorified when we bear fruit. And even better said, when we bear “much” fruit. He also spoke of fruit in Matthew 12:33 when He said that trees are known by the fruit they bear, and in Matthew 7:15-16 He applied this same principle to people. These verses show us, that as believers, we need to be concerned about the kind of fruit we are bearing. We want to bear the good fruit of the Holy Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23), but how do we do that?
Bearing good fruit seems exciting until we realize that fruit-bearing requires pruning. Jesus said: “Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit (that stops bearing) He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.” (John 15:2) Why would we want to do anything that would not please our Father or bring glory to His name? Usually it’s because at the moment it brings us pleasure and we think no further than the moment. Then later, we feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit inside us and we see that it was not a fruitful or productive thing that we did. The Father was not pleased with our actions.
God has a way of letting us know what is right, what is wrong, and what His will is. Call it a feeling, a knowing, an intuition, or a green light on the inside, we all have a witness in our spirit when something is in question. He is so good to give us believers the Holy Spirit as our Helper. Now that He abides on the inside of us, it tells us what fruit He has given us that we should bear. In Galatians chapter 5 we can read about that fruit. It is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. This fruit has one problem. It is on the inside of us and no one can be blessed by it unless we allow it to come out of us. Allow His love to flow out of you to others in an act of kindness. Allow His joy to spill over onto someone that is having a bad day by you giving them a big smile. It is hard to tell what kind of a tree you may be looking at when there is no fruit on it. But when you see the fruit hanging on the branches, then you know what type of tree it is. That’s why it is so important to allow the fruit to manifest outwardly so that others may know what type of tree you are. Isaiah 61:3 tells us that we might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified. How is He glorified by others knowing what type of tree we are? When we bear fruit we will manifest the characteristics that are in us by the Holy Spirit that we read about in Galatians. We will show love to others. We will show goodness and kindness. We will let them see us have peace in the midst of our storm. Then that will cause them to inquire. How can you have such peace when you’re going through that? Why are you always so happy? You are so thoughtful to everyone at work. Why? Then we can tell them. It’s Jesus. We are showing them our Father. WOW! What a privilege. What a responsibility.
Let me ask you. Are you fruity? I sure hope you are. Because when you are, you are bringing the Father much glory. Let’s continue to do our very best to show the world Jesus. Time is very short and we want to demonstrate His love to all we meet before it’s too late. I call you blessed and very fruitful. You are loved.
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