The Fruits Of Our Labor

Now let’s look in the third basket. It is half full. We must be doing something right, but we are still lacking something. We are producing more fruit, but there are others things in our lives keeping us from producing much fruit. Mature pruning is God’s way of helping us to put into practice His command to "seek first the kingdom of God." This is why God will always prune those things that we slavishly seek first, love most, and begrudge giving up. We are told not to have any other gods in our lives. If there is anything in our procession that we are not willing to give up for God, then it is an idol in our lives. We must love God more than any procession that we may own and love God more than any person in our lives. God may be asking you to give up the most important things in your life so that you will be more fruitful in His ministry.

When I finally accepted God’s call to the ministry, I didn’t know what I would be losing until later. When I told my sister of my decision, she stopped talking to me. Two of my daughters now has very little to do with me. Is it worth losing the relationship with my sister and daughters so to produce more fruit for God’s ministry? Yes! God has to be first in our lives. We must love God more that anything else in our lives. I have given my sister and daughters over to God and I have taken on God’s will for my life. I know I have done the right thing because God’s pruning is less painful now. God sacrificed His Son on the cross for us because He loves us. Do we love God enough to make sacrifices in our lives? If you do you will bear more fruit.

Now let’s look in the fourth basket. We see that the basket is overflowing with fruit. To produce much fruit we must abide in Christ. In the first three baskets, we saw that God was proactive in making us produce fruit. To produce much fruit we must be the one to act. To abide in Christ means that we must live a life where we are constantly in contact with God. We must allow Christ to live in us and to control our lives 100% of the time. This means that we are in constant communication with our Father. Abiding is constantly drawing spiritual nourishment from God. With this endless flow of spiritual nourishment, we will produce an abundant overflowing of fruit, with less effort.

How do we learn to abide in our Father? First, seek His face. Get up early every day and read your Bible. Listen to what God’s Holy Word is saying to you. Keep a daily spiritual journal of you talk with God. Learn to pray as if you were talking to your very best friend. Abiding doesn’t measure how much you know about the Bible or your faith. In abiding you seek, long for, thirst, love, hear, and respond to God. Abiding in God means that there isn’t anything else that you would rather be doing than having a close relationship with God. Abiding in God means that you extend your morning devotional to having an-all day attentiveness to His presence. To abide in God means that there is not a moment that you are not aware that you are in the presence of God. When you learn to abide in God, you will see your fruit increase without any effort on your part. God wants to be able to work His ministry through you without any effort on your part. If you are abiding in Him, then He is able to lead you into many new avenues of ministries that will result in producing much fruit for His Kingdom.