Rethinking Fruit
We, as Christ's Body, are to be known by our fruit, He says. I have thought, erroneously, it seems that if someone gives to others and does nice things for them, than this is an obvious display of fruit, somehow proving that they are part of the Body of Christ. Certainly, giving ourselves on behalf of others is something a surrendered person will do, but in itself is not the total picture.
What does Christ say that fruit is? "Gentleness, self-control, peace, faithfulness, love, etc." A person can give to others outwardly, but their inward (and sometimes outward) attitude can be one of anger, judgementalism, gossip, and vengefulness; definately not fruits of the Spirit. It's the nature of the person that matters, not the outward acts of kindness. But it's at home or in daily life,where the rubber meets the road,that is the real determining factor.
My husband has said that you can tell how much of Christ is in someone by how they treat their spouse in private. Uh, oh-that indicts most of us.
We don't want to go too far here in "discerning the Body" by what we think we see in others, and be like the guy who thought the tree needed to be cut down, while the keeper of the vinyard told him to give it one more year. God sees so much more than we do or can, and knows the genuine fruit that is about to come forth.We can, however, begin to see first, in ourselves (as God reveals) what of the flesh we are still operating in , and what needs to be surrendered to His working/healing/ delivering Hand. Then we can begin to walk in the Spirit and let His life and fruit become part of who we are, and not just display fleshly fruits of falsehood, dishonoring our Head; the keeper of the Vineyard.
What does Christ say that fruit is? "Gentleness, self-control, peace, faithfulness, love, etc." A person can give to others outwardly, but their inward (and sometimes outward) attitude can be one of anger, judgementalism, gossip, and vengefulness; definately not fruits of the Spirit. It's the nature of the person that matters, not the outward acts of kindness. But it's at home or in daily life,where the rubber meets the road,that is the real determining factor.
My husband has said that you can tell how much of Christ is in someone by how they treat their spouse in private. Uh, oh-that indicts most of us.
We don't want to go too far here in "discerning the Body" by what we think we see in others, and be like the guy who thought the tree needed to be cut down, while the keeper of the vinyard told him to give it one more year. God sees so much more than we do or can, and knows the genuine fruit that is about to come forth.We can, however, begin to see first, in ourselves (as God reveals) what of the flesh we are still operating in , and what needs to be surrendered to His working/healing/ delivering Hand. Then we can begin to walk in the Spirit and let His life and fruit become part of who we are, and not just display fleshly fruits of falsehood, dishonoring our Head; the keeper of the Vineyard.
posted by Patti Blount @ 4:16 PM
1 Comments:
At 8/25/2010 12:07 PM ,
artnelson said...
It seems to me that we are always confusing fruit and actions, being and doing. We tend to measure fruit by old testament standards; that is, by external actions rather than new testament standards of internal heart conditions.
Fruit is a product of nature--an apple tree produces apples as its fruit. If you know the fruit you know what type of tree it came from. That is also true of us. We have two natures--the old and the new and we have two trees in us--the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Each produces fruit based on its nature; so we have fruit of the flesh and fruit of the spirit. The fruit of our flesh nature has had much more growing time than the fruit of the spirit. Before the Lord, we had no choice but to walk in the flesh. But now, we can choose to walk in the spirit, which will grow the fruit of the spirit in us.
We need to remember that growing fruit is a time intentsive process. We cannot produce "instant" fruit.
In the parable of the sower we are told that the word of the kingdom will produce fruit if it is planted in good ground. The seed of the word has all of the life in it that is necessary to grow fruit. It simply needs good soil--not hard, not rocky, not choked with weeds and briars but plowed and prepared.
All we can do to produce fruit is to yield to the life that is in us. Because of the nature of that life it will produce fruit according to its nature.
My thoughts---Art Nelson
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