Saturday, May 26, 2007

Are we fruitful or just plain fruit?

Grand Sweep Daily Reading: 2 Chronicles 25, 26; Psalms 86, 87

Genesis 17:6; 28:3 (NIV)
17:6 I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come of you.
28:3 May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples.

Leviticus 26:9 (NIV)
I will look on you with favor and make you fruitful and increase your numbers, and I will keep my covenant with you.

Hosea 14:8(b) (NIV)
I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me.

John 15:1-2 (NIV)
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 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.”


Good morning!

I remember the first time I had to brush my teeth with soap for calling something “fruit” in front of my mother. She despised that word when we used it with a slang connotation. Fruit is a sweet treat! It grows in trees, on bushes, and even running vines. We pick it, wash it, and eat it. Some of my favorite fruits are oranges, bananas, strawberries and raspberries. When I was a child, my favorite treat was mother’s blueberry dessert. Grandmother used to make a great gooseberry pie; I must warn you that one must have a taste for the bittersweet to enjoy this almost extinct delicacy.

What does it mean to be fruitful? Webster’s Dictionary teaches that the word fruitful is an adjective, meaning yielding or producing fruit, conducive to an abundant yield. From the beginning of Genesis and peppered throughout scripture, we see God instructing His children to “be fruitful and multiply.” Multiplication has never been my strong suit. I can do it if I write the problem out on paper and double check my work with a calculator. When we take two or more numbers and multiply them, the answer hopefully is larger than the numbers we started with. Now you know why I struggle so with math. How do we take these numbers and multiply them for kingdom work? I believe the answer does not lie in our capabilities. Fruitfulness is a gift extended from the hand of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Before we began trying to make covenant with the Lord, He covenanted with each of us. It was God who created you and me. He made us with purpose. Our life blood flows from Him and mustard seed faith was planted within our souls long before we became a verified heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor. Like the umbilical cord that feeds and nourishes us in the womb, the vine that we grow from is a direct link to our Lord, the giver of everlasting life.

Whenever I entertain, I love preparing fruit platters for people to enjoy. Mounds of grapes, chunked pineapple, whole strawberries, fresh orange slices, and as assortment of round berries make a nice presentation on the buffet table. Fruit is even better when served with sweet dip, or better yet, chocolate sauce. Thinking about it makes my mouth water. We know we are in for a sweet treat when we taste the many fruits our Father has created for our enjoyment. In this upside-down, crazy world, we’ve somehow forgotten that the sweet fruit of faith is not something we do, it is a gift that God offers to each of us.

How do we know when fruitfulness takes root and grows? I know some pretty wonderful people who have given their lives to Jesus Christ and promised to serve Him in pastoral ministry. They have worked hard for many years to plant seeds of faith everywhere they go. It is not always easy measuring fruitfulness. We think we can see it mass numbers. Many pastors consider large, overflowing church buildings a sign of fruitfulness and success. When faithfulness brings people into relationship with Jesus Christ, the evidence may not always show immediately, or in physical numbers. I can name numerous pastors and teachers that have planted seeds of faith in my life and some of those seeds are just now beginning to sprout up and grow. Does that mean that because I didn’t act on faith until now, that those pastors were considered ineffective? I hardly think so. Seeds of faith are gifts of God, and as we grow in Him, God uses the believers placed in our path to help us grow and mature into a strong and healthy vine.

We may never know who we may touch with our thoughts, words, and witness in the world. As we seek to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with our very lives, we must not look at just physical numbers to determine whether our ministries are fruitful. We must trust God – He is the master gardener and He sees what we cannot possibly vision with our physical eyes. He looks upon the heart of every person emerging through someone's faithful witness. New plants spring forth every day because of faith seeds that are planted, sometimes, years ago. They may lay dormant for a season, and then, the Lord of life nourishes that seedling with the help of you and me, and new life springs up!

How do we measure fruitfulness? We look to the Lord, the giver of all sweet fruit. While it may be tempting to tag a fruitful ministry by sheer numbers, we may never know the value of one little seed planted in faith and how it can grow into something extraordinarily sweet and beautiful for the Lord in the days and years ahead. Do not be discouraged when you plant your seeds of faith today and wonder if you'll ever see the results. Remember who the master gardener is, and trust Him to take your humble offering and use it for His kingdom.

Grace and peace,

Deb Spaulding
www.songofdeborah.com


Pray for: the desire to grow faith fruit for the Lord’s work. We offer our prayers, presence, gifts and service to Jesus Christ, knowing His love is all we will ever need. He is the great vine, and we are tiny extensions of His strong root. If we focus our hearts and minds on Christ Jesus, He will multiply our faith, and that faith will speak to the seedlings He planted in the branches of our family, friends and neighbors. He is the true vine. We can fruitful when we intimately know the giver of abundant and everlasting life.

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