Week 2 - Tuesday

Bearing Fruit for God

And I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented thus far) in order that I might obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. (Romans 1:13)

Paul did not want to go to Rome for a vacation, or for a social visit. He wanted to obtain some fruit there, just as he had done in his other travels. Everywhere Paul traveled, his main purpose in going was to produce fruit for God. In fact his main purpose in everything he did was to produce fruit for God. This should be our main purpose in life too. The reason God has called us out of the world is to produce fruit for Him. When we plant an apple tree, we expect that it will grow and produce fruit for us. Likewise when God saves us, He plants His Spirit in us. God expects the result will be that we will grow spiritually and produce fruit for Him.

There are three basic types of fruit that we produce for God. One is called the fruit of the Spirit. These are character traits that God's Spirit produces in us; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Another type is action fruit. This includes activities that are pleasing toGod. Some examples of this are holy living, praising God and giving to help meet the needs of others. A third type of spiritual fruit is called the fruit of addition. These are the things we do to help add more people to God's kingdom and for the spiritual growth of those people. This is eternal fruit, described by Jesus as fruit that will remain. The fruit that we produce brings glory to God. However we cannot produce it on our own. Fruit is always the product of something bigger, something that has the power to produce the fruit. The apples might be hanging on the branches but if the branches were not attached to the tree, they would never produce any fruit. Try cutting some branches off of an apple tree and see if they will produce any fruit. You don't have to do that because you already know that they won't. As Christians, we are the branches and Jesus Christ is the tree. Jesus gave us an illustration of this in John 15:4-5. In His example Jesus didn't use an apple tree but a grape vine and said, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing." The only way we can produce fruit for God is by being attached to Christ. Until we have received Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we cannot do anything that will be pleasing to God.

Readings for today: Heb. 13:15-16; John 15:16; 1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 1:9-10