FRUITLESS/FRUITFUL

…those who hear and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted! —Mark 4:8

As children we used to run all over the mountain behind our house with no need to worry about child predators. In the fall we loved to go to our favorite apple trees to pick and eat. Some years we would approach a tree that had borne great apples the year before and there would not be any apples on it. It was a sad feeling to think it did not produced any fruit for us to enjoy. But other trees would be loaded with apples which brought joy to our hearts.

In the verse mentioned above of the parable of the farmer that sowed seed, only those who heard and accepted God’s Word as their own bore fruit. There are those who hear God’s Word and Satan takes it away. Then there are those who hear God’s Word with their mind, but it does not have any root and when trouble or persecution comes they quickly fall away. Others hear the Word of God by the deceitfulness of wealth and desires for other things make it unfruitful.

It is only the seed that is sown on good soil that produces fruit. These people hear God’s Word and accept it as their own. All the others mentioned above did not. Time has a way of proving who has truly trusted Jesus and who has not. Only those producing much fruit of different amounts honor the Father (John 15:8) and by doing so they prove they are truly Jesus’ disciples. Are you and I producing fruit to honor our Father and prove we are Jesus’ disciples?

Dear Father may the live I live honor You and prove that I truly love Jesus!