What is the Fruitful Christian Life?
Who doesn’t like to bite into a good piece of fruit? Regardless of your preference, fruit is tasty, nutritious and is good for you. Have you ever considered this thought in terms of your spiritual life? …pardon? My walk with God ‘tasty’? Say what?
We find the idea of being fruitful in the earliest book of the Bible. In the creation story, in Genesis 1, the very first command given to man by God was “to be fruitful and multiply.” God uses the idea of growing and reproducing. Interestingly, Jesus gave a similar command to His followers in John 15:16: “go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” He talked a lot about fruit in this particular chapter. The key thread is we are to bear fruit which means we are to do something with our faith, with the gift of salvation and with the call on our lives. We’re to be a ‘doer of the word and not listener only’ as we read in James 1. But what fruit (or fruits) is Jesus referring to in this passage? What does it mean for a believer to be fruitful? And how are Christians supposed to bear fruit?
We are to display the Fruit of the Spirit
Whenever the Bible speaks of fruit or being fruitful in Christ, it is often in reference to the fruit of the Holy Spirit, as shared in Galatians 5, operating in the life of a believer: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Notice that these fruits are attributes of God-like love, peace, faithfulness, and goodness. It is expected that these fruits will closely resemble the parent plant, which in this case is the Spirit of God. While it’s true that we can’t see in the human heart to know who is truly born again and who isn’t, we can see the fruit of a person’s life or the absence of it.
A person who is truly saved and belonging to Jesus, having already crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, is now living according to the Spirit. And if he is living according to the Spirit then he is also walking according to the Spirit, thereby making the fruits of the flesh less visible which we read about right before in Galatians 5. Fruit, and a fruitful life, is manifest in how we live and what we do.
Fruitful living means abiding
If we read the entire passage in John 15 where Jesus called His followers to be fruitful, He specifically said that the only way they could carry out this task was for them to abide in him. What did he mean by this?
Abide means to endure or to wait patiently. The fact that the word “abide” is mentioned eight times in seven verses in John 15 strongly points out how the branch cannot produce its own life, or fruit; it must draw that life from the vine. In other words, it is crucial to abide in Jesus if we are to live a fruitful Christian life. Do we get the point Jesus is trying to make?
After Jesus announced to His disciples that He would be leaving them soon and promising the Holy Spirit to abide with them forever, we now come to the seventh and last of the “I am” statements” “I am the vine”. As Jesus spoke to His disciples in the upper room, preparing to leave for the cross, He uses the imagery of a vine to describe the new relationship which His disciples were about to enjoy with Him and with the Father. For those of us in Jesus, we experience the same thing today. Our Lord is the vine; the believers are the branches, and the Father is the vinedresser (gardener) who tends the vine, removing dead branches and pruning them so that they will become even more fruitful. I’d encourage you to read John 15 today and reflect on this. We live a fruitful Christian life by remaining in Jesus and staying connected to the source of life. Do that and watch your fruit grow!
Pruning is part of it!
Pruning is never fun, but it always has a purpose- to grow more fruit. Our heavenly Father is never nearer to us than when He is pruning us. Sometimes He cuts away the dead wood that might cause trouble, but often He cuts off the living tissue that is robbing us of spiritual vigor.
Pruning does not simply mean spiritual surgery that removes what is bad. It can also mean cutting away the good and the better so that we might enjoy the best. Yes, pruning hurts, but it also helps. We may not enjoy it, but we certainly need it.
At times the Father also prunes us (the branches) by allowing difficult circumstances and situations in our lives such as poor finances, poor health, misunderstanding and conflict with others, difficult relationships, etc. These trials are designed to bring us to the end of our own strength and will awaken in us a need for deeper surrender to the Lord. Remember, you’re never in better hands than when you are being pruned by the Master. Work with his pruning and watch your fruit grow.
So that’s a bit about what it means to live a fruitful Christian life. One last thing- this is for self-reflection, not for comparing or contrasting with others. So, look within and look to bear fruit!
In His grip,
Pastor Chris