Bearing Fruit

Fruit.......what do you think of when you hear that word? Physical fruit or spiritual fruit? This morning in our devotion time in class we read out of John 15:5-8. "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. 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. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

Different types of fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness, faithfulness, and self control. Some of them come more easily than others. But we are supposed to live by the Spirit and not gratify the desires of sinful nature. So bearing fruit is hard, and not much fun 'fleshly-speaking'. But it is sooooo important to God! Do we as Christians think, "Oh, I've mastered this fruit (ex. joy), so I don't really have to work on the others (ex.meekness, self control, kindness)."? I know there have been times when I have definitely thought that. But God wants us to master all of them and live according to His Spirit!

One thing really hit me; "if a man remains in me and I in him, he WILL bear much fruit"......not he MIGHT bear much fruit. The promise is we WILL!!!! =) So.......what does it mean if we don't have fruit? The way I see it is if we don't have fruit, then we aren't remaining in God. Ouch! Plus, fruit is constantly growing, it is not stagnant. So if your fruit is not growing, then it is dying. Jesus says that if you don't remain in him and are not bearing fruit, then you will wither and be thrown away and burned. Wow. This is serious stuff! We must strive after bearing the fruit of the Spirit and be a people who live according to the Spirit!

So my question to you as well to my self: What does your fruit look like??? Is is growing or has it become stagnant? What are you going to do about it?