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Fruitfulness
Here are 4 ways on how become more fruit in your
lives
for Christ, even if you’re not yet saved
Ø
Before fruit there must be life
Ø
There must be an entire commitment to the
conditions
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Fullness must come before Fruitfulness
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The character of the fruit
1)
Before fruit there must be life
John 15 5 “.. I am the vine, you are the
branches.
He who abides in
Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for
without Me you
can do nothing ..”
As time goes on there are
things that Christians tend to forget. Christ is saying here is the He would
hope we would open our eyes to stir up emotion. He wanted to remind us, that,
He is the true Living One, and has come that we may life, (more abundantly).
This going to sound, silly,
but if want a nice fresh apple/pear you don’t look upon a dead tree, would you?
So why not have a true living God that would dwell within you. For, with Christ
Jesus in our lives, you would be able to do things otherwise you wouldn’t
normally be able too.
A soul dead in sin … “..you who He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and
sin..” (Eph 2 v1) … can never bring forth the fruits of righteousness.
There must be a planting in Jesus Christ first.
“.. You must yield yourselves unto
God, as those that are
alive from the dead ..” (Rom 6 v13)
The fruit of the ‘self-life’
is corrupt, so there for you must crucify the flesh with all its lusts, thus
growing in the knowledge of God. This kind of whole hearted surrender to the
grace and the power of the spirited God open the way into the heart, and life
so God can enter in the works mightily.
2)
There must be entire surrender
to the new conditions
So what does it really mean
to ‘Entirely surrender’? Well, if the roots of the tree does not reach out and
spread into the new soil, into which it has been re-planted, then the tree will
not prosper and grow into a fine specimen. In Philippians chp’s 3 9 & 10,
Paul refers to “..being found in Him..”,
the source of life eternal, he then goes onto to also say “..That I may know
Him..”, a growing acquaintance with Him. The branch must be entirely passive to
the power of the vines.
“..present yourselves to God as being alive
from the dead,
and your members as instruments of righteousness
to God ..” (Romans 6 v13)
Tell me, I hear you scream at
the monitors. Well, it so because we must crucify the flesh unto its lusts,
then and only then can we grow in full knowledge of God. We can’t have an air
of arrogance though, or prepare for a stumble after stumble, that is until we
have an air of humbleness. Once we rid ourselves of this arrogance, then we wil
ready for our whole hearted surrender unto the grace and power of the spirit of
God, this will lead the way into the heart and life so that God can enter in
and work mightily within us. Further ways can be found in …
3)
Fullness must come before Fruitfulness
In all
life there a natural order of events. A gun dog must be trained from a puppy to
not be scared of all the bangs from the guns, shouting & noise, and to
watch for the right bird falling from the sky, then go and to fetch it on
command. So it is the growth of the trees, in that the branch will not bear
fruit until it has been filled to over flowing with sustaining sap. Just like a
cup will not over flow, that is until it has been filled up.
“.. He who believes
in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living
water ..” (John 7 v38)
. . .
. . . If the rivers are to flow
out of us, then the unfailing spring must rise up like a torrent and then fill
all within. We must take care though; a
sloppy and dissatisfied heart will always produce only a poor and dissatisfying
testimony for Christ our Lord. It is no good standing up and saying ‘the Lord
saved me from drink’, only to then go out after and by a bottle wine/spirit!
You are only fooling yourself, and making a joke of your testimony. For sure
all those you told about being saved won’t ever take you seriously ever again.
Though fear not all is lost, just you are going to have a fight on your hands,
take comfort as you will have our Lord Jesus there to help you in becoming
strong.
If the roots of our being are
spread next to the river, by the way of our Holy Spirit, then we shall not
cease from yielding fruit.
“..For he shall
be like a tree planted by the waters, Which
spreads out its
roots by the river, And will not fear when
heat comes; But
its leaf will be green, And will not be
anxious in the
year of drought, Nor will cease
rom yielding
fruit ..” (Jeremiah 17: v8)
4)
The character of the Fruit
“.. Along the bank of the river, on this side
and that, will grow all kinds of trees used for food; their
leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit
every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be
for food, and their leaves for medicine ..”
(Ezekiel 47 v12)
This following part has 2 part to it …
i.
It will be new fruit
ii.
It will be new fruit according to the nature of
the tree
i.
So it will be New Fruit
The first statement is ‘It
will be new fruit’. Here we are told, if we regenerate, replace old
branches for new, in doing so we will grow stronger. To stand still after I was
saved is actually sin in its self. We were saved to spread the Word, to spread
His seed/Word, in time to spread out and help many to glory.
The second part is ’It
does not belong to the unregenerate man’. No one wants to be so hard
hearted that you be saved ‘cause a friend is saved’, only to stay as you were
before. How do you expect to grow, if you don’t put off your old ways, and you
will never grow new fruit, because of it? It’s not the fruit of the flesh, and
not the outcome of an energetic self-life.
ii.
It will be new fruit according to the nature of the tree
When gathering fruit, like you would not
look for Figs in the midst of thorns, Or, gather grapes in the middle of the
thistles, would you? Gods fruit cannot be held back because the fruit “.. But the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness ..”
(Galatians 5 v22). But not the fruit of the Christians, the fruit of the
spirit, as we can see, is just the likeness of Christ.
You have now become partakers of the divine nature. As a result of the living Spirit, moving sap, with so the image and the characteristics of Christ are wrought in the believers by the living, moving spirit within.
So surely it is the work of God, and evidence of a soul being full possessed by Him. Now I'm sure there is more than one among you who thought this 'Possessed by Him sounded ever so 'demonic-supernatural'. Well, No & Yes. OK stop scratching you heads or you'll have no hair left. No - our Lord is by no means demonic, but, Yes - our God is the only one true supernatural, after all He made the Heavens & Earth, so He could not be Human.
Where there is the indwelling of the Spirit, there must be infestation of the Christ likeness. It was once said, sadly I know not by whom, that 'Death is the way to life and fruitfulness’.
