Good Monday Morning!
I think today will be a good day…comparatively speaking! Tomorrow sounds like it is going to be not so good! Be safe and stay warm.
I don’t know about all of you but God just continues to amaze me. He has really been hitting the “love your neighbor” idea and also this idea about “fruit.” The last two weeks we have touched on the idea of “going and producing lasting fruit” (John 15:16-17) and “your lives will produce every kind of good fruit” (Col. 1:10). You’re probably tired of seeing or hearing them! Well, this morning I open up my daily devotion and it is chapter 21 of the Book of Matthew. What is it you say? The parable of the fig tree! It is about producing fruit and how Jesus feels when appropriate fruit isn’t being produced
In the morning, as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem, he was hungry, and he noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs, but there were only leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” And immediately the fig tree withered up. Matt. 21:18-19 NLT
Jesus sees a fig tree looking the part. It has leaves and he anticipated it having some figs on it. He gets there only to find out that the fig tree looks good from a distance but up close…nothing! Nada! Zip! Zilch! No fruit at all. Jesus curses it and it withers.
The expectation was that if the tree was filled with leaves it would produce fruit. It is the same with us. If we look the part…we are sitting in the pew on Sunday, we are carrying our bibles, we tell people we are followers of Jesus…write a tithe check but we aren’t producing fruit…how do you think Jesus feels about us? The John 15 passage says Jesus “chose you!” He “appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit!” That is the expectation. Nothing less! The Pharisees looked and played the part but Jesus had very few positive words towards them. They certainly were very “religious” but weren’t producing any real fruit.
In Matthew 7, Jesus tells the people that you can identify a tree by their fruit. A good tree produces good fruit and bad tree produces bad fruit. Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Then, a few verses later he says that “not everyone who calls out to me “Lord, Lord!” will enter the Kingdome of Heaven. Again, what is the expectation? If you are a follower of Jesus…love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength…then you WILL PRODUCE FRUIT! And this isn’t just about us as individuals. This idea of bearing fruit is for the institution of the church as well! I read a very scary statistic the other day that says only 3-5% of growing churches are growing by “conversions.” In other words, growing by reaching the lost. Otherwise, church growth is just “sheep swapping.” It is estimated that there are 3 churches closing for every church being planted.
What kind of fruit are you producing? Are you producing fruit? Or are you just a tree that looks the part? As a church, is MABC producing fruit…good fruit? Lasting fruit? I know those are harsh words but we are living in trying times where the church needs to up its game and start producing more fruit. Let’s be the oasis of fruit production here in “the neighborhood!”
P.R.
