So every spring I go to my brothers house to hang out and sometimes I help him work on his yard. In his yard is a small tree and when summer comes these small, odd shaped balls grow on it. For the longest time, none of us knew what they were. That was until one afternoon in the fall when we were sitting outside and we looked up. Sure enough, those weird little balls had grown into pears. Now I love pears, but when i pulled one off the tree and bit into it, something was not right.

You may be asking yourself, "Self, why in the world is Sean telling us about his love for pears?" and heres the reason. Plain and Simple trees produce fruit. Apple trees make apples, Orange trees make oranges, and as sure as the day is long, Pear trees will make pears. But there is a catch...

Trees only produce good fruit when they are good trees. Trees that are abused or not taken care of will produce nasty fruit. Have you ever seen an old apple tree that hasn't been taken care of? The apples that come off of it can be pretty gross. Then again sometimes they are good, but since the tree is in bad shape no one picks the apples off the branches and they rot on the tree.

Now this may sound weird, but we are branches that produce fruit. Again your probably saying to yourself "Self, Sean has officially lost it. He can't even tell the difference between a person and a piece of wood.". Well if you were thinking that, You'd be wrong. We ARE fruit producing branches. God is our tree and we are His branches.

Check this verse from John 15
"I am the vine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that doesn't produce fruit and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more."


Jesus is pretty clear about this one. He is the Tree, and we are His Branches. His father takes great care to cut away the dead branches and nurture the branches that make fruit so they will make even more!

Lets keep reading...


"You have already been pruned for greater fruitfulness by the message I have given to you. Remain in me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is not on the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me. Yes I am the vine and you are the branches., Those who remain in me and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Anyone who parts from Me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers . Such branches are gathered into a pile and burned. But if you stay joined to Me and My words remain in you, you may ask any request and it will be granted!"

So we know that apple trees make apples, and orange trees make oranges, but what fruit does God's tree make? Well as branches, I think it would be a great idea to know what we should be producing, so here we go!

"But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control."

So there we have it, When we are in Christ and his words, the spirit allows us to bear God's fruit of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. 

So just when you see an apple on a tree you know that it is an apple tree, when people see in us the Spirit's fruit, they will know the tree that we come from, that is the Tree of Life in Jesus, carefully and lovingly taken care of by God the Father Himself.

But wait! There's still a little bit more... Remember when I talked about the apple that stays on the tree too long? Think back...(or read that part again...dont worry, I'll wait)...

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..Oh hey, welcome back! Now what was I saying? Oh yeah fruit. So when a piece of fruit stays on a tree too long it rots and gets super nasty. We can be the same way. If we hold onto the fruit that the Spirit gives us, it starts to become no good. So we need to share that fruit with others around us.

So what do you say? How about we get out into the world, let the Spirit grow fruit in us, and then lets get out there and share it with as many people as possible! Friends need our fruit, Family needs our fruit, even total strangers and enemies need the fruit we have to give. Lets not allow our life giving gifts to rot away. Share them, as much as possible and through that sharing let the world see what tree you come from!


Have a great week.
 


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