BEAR
FRUIT
BREAD
7 But
when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was
baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from
the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And
do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell
you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The
ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce
good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” Matthew 3:7-10 (NIV)
7 John
said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who
warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce
fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We
have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can
raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every
tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the
fire.” Luke 3:7-9 (NIV)
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me
and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is
thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and
burned. 7 If you remain in me and my
words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit,
showing yourselves to be my disciples.” John
15:5-8 (NIV)
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go
and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever
you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other. John 15:16-17 (NIV)
9 For
this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for
you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all
spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life
worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good
work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being
strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have
great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12 giving
thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the
saints in the kingdom of light.
Colossians 1:9-12 (NIV)
22 But
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there
is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the
sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since
we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-25 (NIV)
19 Do
you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom
you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you
were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)
15 Do
your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not
need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15 (NIV)
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts
them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and
beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on
the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine
and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house
on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and
the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great
crash."
Matthew 7:24-27 (NIV)
24 “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the
ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces
many seeds. 25 The man who loves his life
will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal
life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow
me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who
serves me.” John 12:24-26 (NIV)
BREAD
“As the vine sends its energy
through the branch to bear fruit, so Christ can send His energy through you.” John
MacArthur
“Our actions disclose what goes on within
us, just as its fruit makes known a tree otherwise unknown to us.” Thalassias the Libyan
“By continually abiding in
Christ, the one who has been pruned to bring forth much fruit will bring forth
much fruit.” Elmer Towns
“A primary qualification for
serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and
triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness.
When God’s warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might,
when he boasts, ‘I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my
conquering sword shall get unto me the victory’, defeat is not far
distant. God will not go forth with that
man who marches in his own strength. He
who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for ‘it is not by might,
nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’. They who go forth to fight, boasting of their
prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their
armour stained with disgrace. Those who
serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never
accept their service. That which man
doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own. The mere fruits of the earth He casteth away;
He will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by
grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.
God will empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into
thee; He will first clean out the granaries before He will fill them with the
finest of the wheat……Your emptiness is but the
preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making
ready for your lifting up.” C. H.
Spurgeon
“It is important to understand that fruitfulness and
growth are the results of focusing on Christ and desiring to honor Him. When growth and change are our primary goals,
we tend to be preoccupied with ourselves instead of with Christ. ‘Am I growing? Am I getting any better? Am I more like
Christ today? What am I learning?’ This inordinate preoccupation with
self-improvement parallels our culture’s self-help and personal enhancement
movement in many ways. Personal
development is certainly not wrong, but it is misleading—and it can be very
disappointing—to make it our preeminent goal.
If it is our goal at all, it should be secondary. As we grasp the unconditional love, grace,
and power of God, then honoring Christ will increasingly be our consuming
passion…The only One worthy of our preoccupation is Christ, our sovereign Lord,
who told Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in
weakness’”. Robert
McGee
“Cut out that which seems good to invest in the best. It is the law of life: Early sacrifice for later bounty.
It can be hard
to prune good things that are blooming. It can be hard to remember why you are pruning. Because there’s a counter-intuitiveness to
it, this plucking off certain life activities that will yield good fruit.
Some might even think it foolish to pare back, when the bloom and gifting
apparent; a good harvest inevitable. Yet it’s the pruning of
seemingly good leaves that can grow a better life. To allow later seasons to yield the longed-for abundant crop. It takes courage to crop a life
back — but
it’s exactly the way to have the best crop of all. What seems like hard work
that’s taking an eternity today — is exactly what may make the most difference in eternity.” Ann Voskamp
“God has a multitude of reasons for allowing our troubling situations. Perhaps He is working on some of the people in our lives. Maybe He is working out His timing to reap the maximum harvest when His solution comes in the end. Or He could be proving a point to His enemy about His glory, as He did with Job – and your reaction is the key. Maybe He is even working on us – our character flaws, personality issues, or spiritual growth. Unpruned trees bear less fruit, so He must shape us differently. But we’re surprised – and angry – when His pruning hand is not as gentle as we’d like. The question we need to settle in our hearts is whether we believe God is good. It isn’t hard to hold such a belief when His blessings seem bountiful. But the blessing of hardship? We wonder where His favor has gone. We grow distant, resentful, and bitter over the harshness of His loving hand. Like a child who has just been spanked – or simply told ‘no’ – we pout. God just doesn’t seem fair.” Chris Tiegreen
“‘The
best memories are still to come.’ I doubt anyone who came to Ray’s funeral will
forget those words. Every so often you get to see with your own eyes the
fruit of a life lived with sacrificial faithfulness. All the life
that comes from an actual, old-fashioned dying-to-self. It’s
staggering. It pulls me back to reality. No matter how glamorized
the choices and desires of one’s individual Self and the temptation to organize
your life around getting what you think you want, that’s not how God set
up the universe. It’s just as Jesus said. The grain of
wheat that falls into the ground like a dead dream becomes a field of such
bounty it stretches into the horizon. You can hardly get a seat at the
funeral. So in those moments that no one
would notice but you, when you have to die in some small way to what
you’d really rather do in order to care for your children, or your aging
mother, or when you go out of your way to strengthen someone else’s hand
in God, and you think none of it matters much and you will never turn out
to be anybody special, and the ‘sacrifice’ of something you cherish
appears a bit dumb by current standards, remember my friend, Ray.
As will I.” Paula
Rinehart
“As
the flower is before the fruit, so is faith before good works.” Richard Whately
HEART SAVOR
- · True faith will produce fruit.
- · Eternal fruit is empowered by the Spirit so that no one can boast – the One that gives the power gets the glory.
- · A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
