The fruit-bearing life

The young lions suffer want and hunger,

But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Psalm 34:10

 

Read Matthew 7:15—23

I do not quite live my life in a vacuum. If I am a Christian today it is very likely that I have seen someone, been influenced by someone from whom I wanted to take something very real to nourish my own life. Let me think. What was it that I wanted to pick from them, as you pick fruit? How was it that they produced a harvest? Where did the fruitfulness arise in them? What did they hold to strongly? How did they pattern their days? What had to be in place for their lives to flourish as they did? I saw Christ in them. How did they grant him possession? What would they have told me of their way of walking with Christ, how he spoke into their lives?

 

Dear Lord, all things were made through you and for you, and therefore all things were made for fruitfulness. And so am I. The fact that I am yours is itself a harvest of the Spirit’s work. Cultivate your word in me. Speak to me of your own heart. Let me hunger for those things that please you and thirst for those practices that will mature me. For I want to be who you made me to be, and I pray that the product of my life will be useful to you.