If a Tree has Leaves, does it have Fruit?
June 27, 2014
If a Tree has Leaves, does it have Fruit?
Matthew 21:18-19
18Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
A fruit tree is expected to produce fruit after its kind. A Christian is expected to produce fruit after their kind.
The fig tree in this story is said to represent Israel. The person coming from the outside might enter a city like Jerusalem and see it flourishing. They could go to the temple and see it full of activity and religious men walking about it and throughout the city. Jesus teaches us here that just because a tree has leaves and looks healthy doesn’t mean that it is fruitful. If it is a fruit tree that appears healthy and yet produces no fruit, it is failing in its purpose in life. Just like Israel, if we appear to be the people of God, have all of the churches and religious services, but do not bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit, then we too are barren. We are missing our purpose. Our purpose is to not bear healthy looking leaves, but to produce fruit in the way God has purposed us to do. No amount of leaves or trappings can hide that.
Adam and Eve used leaves to hide their nakedness and we often do the same; hiding the shame of a life that is void of fruitfulness, but full of activity. Jesus says in John 15:1-8, “”I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He 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. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain 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.
5″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. 6If 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. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” We are taught here that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. He doesn’t tell us that our function is to produce leaves, but to produce fruit. Leaves are a support and facilitator for the fruit, but they can never take the place of the fruit; they are like faith and works, they go together.
Jesus gave us many examples where He shows us that we have responsibility and accountability for His life in us. If we take and receive the life of Christ in us, then live our lives only for ourselves we are a fruitless tree or branch. We are to bear fruit so that others might be partakers of the life of Christ and be nourished through what He is imparted to us.
The fruit of the Spirit spoken of in Galatians 5:22-23 are, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This fruit operating in our lives will allow us to be fruitful in the gifts and abilities that God has given each of us for our ministry and calling.
One day the Lord will examine our tree or our branch. We have responsibility for what it is bearing. If we are truly abiding in the vine then we will be producing the fruit and not just the leaves. It is important that we judge ourselves that we be not judged. How fruitful is our tree?
Blessings,
#kent
Created for Good Works
December 4, 2013
Created for Good Works
Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Everything that is created and fashioned has a purpose and function. Some things are fashioned for honorable purposes and some for less than honorable purposes. God’s word to us today is that He has taken special time, effort and direct thought to create and fashion you for a specific and wonderful purpose. In Christ Jesus, the Father has chosen you out and is forming His nature and character in you for good works, His works. The awesome thing about it is that it didn’t depend on any ability or natural attribute you had. You and I strictly are a product of His grace at work within us. That grace took us out of the place of the dishonorable and placed us in the position of the select and the elect of God. He chose us out and is fashioning us in the likeness of Christ Jesus for a reason, “good works.” This is how we can know what the Father is working in us, by what comes out of us. It won’t be religious works or self-righteous works or even our works. It will be us walking and producing good works because of the One that has separated us out and made us His workmanship. What is He working in you today? Are you yielding yourself to the master craftsman’s hand so that He can fashion you to be all that He desires and purposes you to be?
Let us remember our purpose and on purpose yield our will and our lives to Him so that He can work His precious work of grace in us. We will recognize it by what our lives are producing. We will produce the fruit that will bear witness to the tree from which we came from. James 2:14-18 says it quite well: “What [doth it] profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be [ye] warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what [doth it] profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” True faith will manifest the works of God in a practical way. Our good works should not just be the product of self-efforts at doing well. Those efforts will fail when they are tested with scorn, criticism or lack of appreciation. The good works Christ is working in us comes out of the Father and it is unto Him we live our lives and work the works that are produced out of His unconditional love. They will not cease because of circumstances and response of others. They are being fashioned into our being as a product and witness of our faith. Through these works people will see that we do not have just a superficial religion, but a true and unshakable faith, that truly we are the workmanship of God unto good works in Christ Jesus.
Blessings,
kent