Eternal Fruit

When I was in seminary taking a class on worship and sacraments, one of our assignments was to write our own obituary.  We actually had to write two.  One obituary was about our lives right at that moment.  If we died that day what would our obituary say?  The second one was looking into the future.  If we lived to a ripe old age, whatever that may be, what would we want it to say?  So we all thought of those wonderful things that are said in obituaries and at funerals - a good spouse, a good parent, friend to those in need, dedicated, hard worker.  All of those things are good, and can hopefully be said about us, but looking back at it now, these many years later, there was something I missed.  More important than all of those good things, I want it say something a little different.  I want it to say, that I lived for Christ, lived like Christ, and pointed others to Christ.  I want it to be said that I allowed God to work in me to produce real fruit, lasting fruit.  Not fruit that will perish when I am no longer here, but fruit that will have a lasting eternal impact for Christ.  . 

In order to know if we are actually allowing God to use us to produce the real lasting fruit that we were made for, we need to know what that fruit looks like.  Paul gives us a list of some of these fruit in our Galatians passage as the fruit of the spirit, but this list is not comprehensive, and these gifts are not listed in order.  The fruit that we are to produce first and foremost is love as we see in the great commandment to love the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  The gift list that Paul gives us comes out of this primary gift of love.

In order to produce the real fruit that we are called to, we have to be connected to the vine.  If you have ever grown fruit on trees or vines, you know that in order for the fruit to grow it has to be connected to the main vine or trunk for nutrients.  If the branch is not connected it will wither and die because it is not being fed.  If the branch is attached to something else because of grafting, it no longer produces that fruit that it was originally designed to produce, it producing something different.

Jesus tells us “I am the vine and you are the branches.”  We were designed to be attached to God, to abide in Christ for sustenance and nourishment, that is how we produce the fruit we were designed for.  “Fruit bearing is not a matter of being strong or weak, good or bad, brave or cowardly, clever or foolish, experienced or inexperienced.  Whatever your gifts, accomplishments or virtues, they cannot produce fruit if you are detached from Jesus Christ.  Christians who think they are bearing fruit apart from the Vine are only tying on artificial fruit.  Fruit is born not by trying, but by abiding.” (John MacArthur) 

In order for us to sustain a genuine spiritual life in the world and produce the real fruit we were designed for, we need to remain intimately attached to Christ.  It is through this attachment to Christ that we receive the nourishment we need to grow.  Trying to produce fruit apart from Christ can be exhausting, draining, discouraging, and leave us completely unfulfilled.  We work so hard to produce what we think we are supposed to, only to find that if we can produce something, it is nothing like what Christ is calling us to. 

We want to be independent and do everything ourselves but the only way to produce real fruit is recognize that it is not us producing fruit on our own, but it is God producing fruit in us.  It is not ours to cultivate and nourish ourselves, but it is God’s fruit, and God’s work.  We can’t do this on our own.  We need to abide in Christ and submit our lives to Christ.  We need to let God work in and through us to produce real fruit that will last.

So it comes down to this.  If we want to have real fruit, fruit that will last, we need to make sure we are depending on Christ for our strength and nourishment and not the things of this world.  When we depend on God, and trust Him to provide for us, God then produces real fruit in us.  The fruit of love born out of the love that God has for us.  The fruit of the Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians.  We need to remember that it is not up to us to produce our own fruit, but it is God’s work and God’s fruit.  It is God working in and through us.  God is able to work in and through us when we are abiding in him, every single day.

God bless, Rev. Liz Arakelian, www.LivingHopeEC.org