“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal 5: 22,23a)
In the Bible, we see a lot of verses on the topic of bearing fruit. Obviously, we aren't supposed to actually grow fruits on our bodies, so we know that this is an analogy God is using to explain matters of His Kingdom in a way we can understand them more easily. As we know from several verses, to bear fruit means that good things are coming forth from our lives.
Because of God's repeated analogy we've adopted 'bearing fruit' as Christian lingo. I love how God has even shaped our language with His analogies, but I believe that over the years the analogy might have lost some of its deep and rich meaning because of the frequent usage.
Now, I'm no vineyard owner, but there are a few very basics about fruits that don't require in-depth study. I feel the Lord has used some of these basics to show me a deeper meaning, that I'd like to share with you.
Basic #1: Fruit grows on trees
This might seem a dead give-away, but it's an important thing to realize. Even Jesus Himself says“Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. ” (Mat 7:17,18)
The quality of fruit is dependent on the tree it's on. In church, there is a great emphasis on bearing good fruit, but Jesus Himself said that the fruit is simply the result of the state of the tree. So what Jesus is saying is that we can't grow kindness by focussing on being kind.
The quality of fruit is dependent on the tree it's on.
In Gal 5 Paul speaks about the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. Did you ever notice that he never tells us we have to grow this fruit? He's simply saying that the fruit will grow when we live by the Spirit. The fruit is not a command, they are a RESULT of living by the Spirit.
Just like a tree, we grow fruit according to the state of our heart and our community with the Spirit. So instead of trying to work hard on becoming more kind, we need to focus on tuning into His Spirit. When we feed on His word and living water our tree will grow healthy and strong. As a result, kindness will grow in our lives.
In Dutch we have a saying that can be loosely translated to “Whomever you spend time with, will infect you.” When we spend time with Holy Spirit, we WILL be infected by His wonderful qualities and they will start growing in our lives.
The only Biblically reason to focus on the fruit? To determine the state of the heart.
Basic #2: Fruit grows
Have you ever seen a tree squeeze out fruit like a woman gives birth to a child? The thought of it is so ridiculous that I can't help but laugh when I picture this. Fruit isn't birthed, fruit grows gradually and naturally. There is no force involved, yet I've seen many Christians try to force themselves to be more fruitful.
I believe that any time when we try to forcefully birth fruit, it's because of fear. Maybe the fear of rejection, failure or falling short of God's expectations. Let's call the combination of all of these: fear of fruitlessness. God knows that fear doesn't produce anything healthy. Why else would the Bible be filled with 'fear not', so many times?
He knows better than we do that fruits grow gradually and that there is no way for us to force that process to speed up beyond the natural.
God is almighty and He can give you whatever is needed, right when it's needed if He desires to. This can be a gift, anointing, deliverance or outpouring. When God chooses the process of growing fruit He knows that this will take time. He knows better than we do that fruits grow gradually and that there is no way for us to force that process to speed up beyond the natural.
Basic #3: Fruit grows according to season
As we all know there is a lengthy process involved before fruit is produced. In our northern hemisphere, most trees need a cycle of about one year. During this year the tree sheds leaves, gets pruned, shuts down in winter to preserve itself, starts budding and growing leaves, blossoms and then slowly grows fruit. Even when the fruit is clearly visible it still needs quite some time to be healthy and edible. All these stages are part of the cycle that will produce fruit and none of these stages can be skipped.
Spiritually speaking we can be in any of these seasons. It's awesome to be in a season of blossoming or watching the fruit grow. But there are times as well when our lives might look bare and dead. This isn't a sign of doing things wrong. There is a very good chance that you're in the right process at the right time. Don't get discouraged, but stay in the process. If you feel like losing heart, feel free to ask God what He's doing in your life. You might be surprised!
The very fact that you worry about doing it right means that your heart is in the right place.
Being in a season of not bearing any visible fruit, doesn't mean we're wrong or we failed. We're only in the wrong place when we fall out of the seasons He has established for us. So as long as we're in the process of producing fruit, we don't need to worry at all.
When Jesus rebuked the fig tree for not bearing any fruit He did so because this tree was 'in leaf'. This means it was in its season to bear fruit but didn't. If the tree would have been recently pruned or in a season of budding, Jesus wouldn't have expected it to bear fruit. The problem with this tree is that it wasn't in line with God's appointed seasons.
So if you worry about being judged for not bearing fruit I can assure you: there's no reason to. The very fact that you worry about it means that your heart is in the right place. In the long run, fearing fruitlessness might actually affect the state of your heart. So relax and simply focus on letting Him guide you through the seasons. You will bear fruit and each year the fruit will increase.
Relax!
Just because we're not focussing on the fruit anymore, doesn't mean we can do what we like. We should always be kind, loving and gentle to the best of our ability. However, the Bible does reveal to us that focussing on the fruit isn't helpful in producing it. Connecting to God, feeding on His word and His Spirit and surrendering our hearts to Him are what we can do to help grow healthy fruit.
So we can let go of our fear of fruitlessness or the idea we need to birth fruit forcefully. Relax. Breathe.
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