Bearing Fruit
Spring is almost here. After a long and cold winter, the prospect brings a smile to the face and joy to the heart. We love spring for it is a renewal of beauty and peace. The trees bud and bloom. The fields are seeded and begin to sprout with different hues. Our shrubs and bushes begin their wonderful journey to the colors and scent we enjoy so much in the summer and fall. There is something deeply satisfying about tilling the soil and watching our efforts bear fruit. From our creation in the Garden of Eden up to this present moment we all gain a sense of purpose tending our garden.
Agricultural illustrations abound in the Scriptures. Through Isaiah, God revealed that he “has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.” “He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.” This “vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant plant” (Isa. 5:1-7). God was planting this vineyard when he called Abraham out of Ur and brought Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan. He hoped this vineyard would produce the precious fruit of souls he could “harvest” at “the end of the world” (Mt. 13:39), but he was bitterly disappointed.
Jesus carried this same concept into the church: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser... I am the vine, you are the branches.” As vinedresser, God assesses each branch. “Every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Finally Jesus also revealed “My Father is glorified,” when “you bear much fruit.” (Jn. 8:1-8).
So we enjoy the spring as we plant crops and watch trees and shrubs grow because we were created in the image and likeness of God. All that we feel, he feels, or perhaps better stated we feel exactly like God feels.
It is because we are so much alike in this realm that Jesus was able to use agricultural parables to reveal God’s feelings in a powerful way we can all understand. “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none, and he said behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why does it use up the ground? (Lk. 13:6-9)? No one has to teach us what this means.
In the parables of the sower, tares, seed growing secretly, mustard seed, two sons, laborers in the vineyard, and rich fool, Jesus opened his “mouth in parables” and uttered “things hidden from the foundation of the world.” Because of our own understanding of agriculture we are able to see what “many prophets and righteous men desired to see... and saw them not” (Mt. 13:17, 35).
The importance of agricultural growth reveals the importance of spiritual growth! In the spring we see the same potential God sees within our own heart. How we protect our heart is identical to how we protect the soil. Remember, “the seed is the word of God,” and as Paul went into all the world: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” Not only is the word of God the seed, it is also the water that causes that seed to grow. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth...” (Isa. 55:10-11)
But just as our soil can bear good fruit or weeds, so in the spiritual realm there is the good seed of God’s word and the tares of the devil who “sowed tares in the midst of the wheat” (Mt. 13:25). It is imperative we assess the seeds and plants growing within our heart for “every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up” (Mt 15: 13). We do not want our heart bearing tares, thorns or thistles! “For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God: but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned” (Heb. 6:7-8).
As we watch the “sower going forth to sow,” we see our God sending forth his own laborers into the field. As this seed is preached, it falls into the hearts of all. As we assess our soil (heart) what do we see? Each time the word of God is preached something is being sown. As we hear it, what is happening? Does it fall by the wayside as though we never heard it at all? Does it stay for a short time, but gradually lose its power in fear of persecution? Has it been overwhelmed by the cares of this world and the desires for other things? Does it “yield a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Mt. 13:3-9; 18-23)?
When “the law was nailed to the cross” and the “veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom,” “some of the branches were broken off,” for “by their unbelief they were broken off” (Col. 2:14; Mt. 27:51; Rom. 11:16-21). Now by the grace of God “to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life,” and “being a wild olive, was grafted in among them, and did become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree.” Yet Paul warned: “be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee” (Acts 11:18; Rom. 11:16-21).
Our heart is soil, God’s word the seed and the water. We are a branch in the vine and in the olive tree, and we are a fig tree God is seeking fruit upon. We must “bring forth therefore fruits worthy repentance,” for “even now the axe also lies at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” (Lk. 3:8-9)
Agricultural illustrations abound in the Scriptures. Through Isaiah, God revealed that he “has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.” “He dug it up and cleared out its stones, and planted it with the choicest vine. He built a tower in its midst, and also made a winepress in it; so He expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.” This “vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His pleasant plant” (Isa. 5:1-7). God was planting this vineyard when he called Abraham out of Ur and brought Israel out of Egypt and into Canaan. He hoped this vineyard would produce the precious fruit of souls he could “harvest” at “the end of the world” (Mt. 13:39), but he was bitterly disappointed.
Jesus carried this same concept into the church: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser... I am the vine, you are the branches.” As vinedresser, God assesses each branch. “Every branch that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” Finally Jesus also revealed “My Father is glorified,” when “you bear much fruit.” (Jn. 8:1-8).
So we enjoy the spring as we plant crops and watch trees and shrubs grow because we were created in the image and likeness of God. All that we feel, he feels, or perhaps better stated we feel exactly like God feels.
It is because we are so much alike in this realm that Jesus was able to use agricultural parables to reveal God’s feelings in a powerful way we can all understand. “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit thereon, and found none, and he said behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why does it use up the ground? (Lk. 13:6-9)? No one has to teach us what this means.
In the parables of the sower, tares, seed growing secretly, mustard seed, two sons, laborers in the vineyard, and rich fool, Jesus opened his “mouth in parables” and uttered “things hidden from the foundation of the world.” Because of our own understanding of agriculture we are able to see what “many prophets and righteous men desired to see... and saw them not” (Mt. 13:17, 35).
The importance of agricultural growth reveals the importance of spiritual growth! In the spring we see the same potential God sees within our own heart. How we protect our heart is identical to how we protect the soil. Remember, “the seed is the word of God,” and as Paul went into all the world: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” Not only is the word of God the seed, it is also the water that causes that seed to grow. “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth...” (Isa. 55:10-11)
But just as our soil can bear good fruit or weeds, so in the spiritual realm there is the good seed of God’s word and the tares of the devil who “sowed tares in the midst of the wheat” (Mt. 13:25). It is imperative we assess the seeds and plants growing within our heart for “every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up” (Mt 15: 13). We do not want our heart bearing tares, thorns or thistles! “For the land which hath drunk the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receiveth blessing from God: but if it beareth thorns and thistles, it is rejected and nigh unto a curse; whose end is to be burned” (Heb. 6:7-8).
As we watch the “sower going forth to sow,” we see our God sending forth his own laborers into the field. As this seed is preached, it falls into the hearts of all. As we assess our soil (heart) what do we see? Each time the word of God is preached something is being sown. As we hear it, what is happening? Does it fall by the wayside as though we never heard it at all? Does it stay for a short time, but gradually lose its power in fear of persecution? Has it been overwhelmed by the cares of this world and the desires for other things? Does it “yield a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Mt. 13:3-9; 18-23)?
When “the law was nailed to the cross” and the “veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom,” “some of the branches were broken off,” for “by their unbelief they were broken off” (Col. 2:14; Mt. 27:51; Rom. 11:16-21). Now by the grace of God “to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life,” and “being a wild olive, was grafted in among them, and did become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree.” Yet Paul warned: “be not highminded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee” (Acts 11:18; Rom. 11:16-21).
Our heart is soil, God’s word the seed and the water. We are a branch in the vine and in the olive tree, and we are a fig tree God is seeking fruit upon. We must “bring forth therefore fruits worthy repentance,” for “even now the axe also lies at the root of the trees: every tree therefore that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” (Lk. 3:8-9)