Matt Adams discusses the importance of bearing good fruit and how easy it is not to.

-Transcript-

There are two peach trees growing on the hill behind my house. My dad planted them years ago in the hopes of having a few fresh peaches each season.

Now, my dad was an electrician, not a farmer. The trees are short, stunted things, and never – not one year – have they produced a single, edible peach.

Alright, siblings, here’s where I’m going with this: The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These should be growing in our lives; we should see a greater harvest of these fruits each year. So why don’t we?

Why do we struggle with things like joy and self-control? Because it’s been far too long since we’ve allowed the farmer, our Father, to walk through and prune back or cut away those branches, those things in our lives, that aren’t producing good fruit.

We have convinced ourselves that we are fine the way we are; our good enough mentality allows us to look at a dried, shriveled, worm-infested crop and think, “Well, at least I’m producing fruit.” Nope! Not good enough! Not for the world we live in. It’s past time, in my own life, that I fully submit to the Will and the Word of God, that I measure my obedience against His plumb line rather than the line of “good enough” that the world so readily accepts. Salvation is mine; sanctification is a process (one that I think we all neglect). We have GOT to get SERIOUS about following Christ closely, about producing GOOD fruit.

Why am I so fired up about this? Because I have two daughters, 400+ students, and thousands of people in my own Jerusalem and fruit is not made to feed the tree from which it grows. Grapes don’t grow to feed the vine….Grapes don’t grow to feed the vine! The fruit God produces in us feeds others! Please let it be good fruit!

John 15:15 says “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.”

Until next time, book open, eyes on Him. 

 

Matt Adams
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