“Yes, I am the vine; 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.” (John 15:5 NLT)
As I look back over my life, I can very often gauge the fruitfulness of my life by my faithfulness. In other words, those times when my life was bearing very little fruit were the times I was distracted in my faith. We can be very busy doing “Christian” things, while at the same time rendering very little honor and glory to our Savior.
Bob Goff wrote: “It’s easy to confuse busyness with progress and accomplishments with pleasing Jesus.” We can be so busy being faithful we miss the purpose of our faithfulness. Someone said: “we can get so busy doing the work of the Lord, we forget the Lord of the work.” We can be very faithful for the wrong reasons or in a wrong way.
For example, while pastoring a small church I learned that those who complain the loudest about being “overworked” in the ministry aren’t always grateful when you get them the help they claim to so desperately need. A very faithful worker was assuming many roles in the Sunday School area when a new person began attending our church.
The new person had background in teaching and leading, so we used her a few times to fill in. She was amazing. The kids loved her, and her life shined with the glow of Jesus. Yet, when I made some adjustments, giving her a spot on the teaching team, the person who was “overworked” and “desperately” needed assistance, suddenly was very angry because I was “pushing her out.”
Love doesn’t demand its own way, it embraces others and makes room for those who are willing to help, whether that’s in the local church or in the workplace. Our faithfulness isn’t measured simply by what we do in and through the church. The Lord wants the fruit of our faithfulness to be evidenced in every avenue of our lives.
Faithfulness should be born out of our obedience. Fruit grows over time as our skillful Gardner prunes us and shapes us for His service, whether in the church, our home, our workplace, or in our places of recreation. There should be no avenue of our lives devoid of the influence of our faithful love of and service to our Savior.
Steven Furtick wrote: “It is often in the process of obedience that character is formed.” One of the main indicators that the fruit of God’s Spirit is doing His work in us is the development of godly character. If our attitude or outlook, especially in how we treat others, is different at church, in our home, in our workplace, or when hanging out with friends, we’re missing the point of faithfulness.
Our faithfulness to God is designed to point all honor, glory, and praise to the One for whom we’re seeking to be fruitful in the first place. It’s never about us. It’s always and only about Jesus. Our role is to be faithful. His role is to bear fruit in and through our lives.
It’s a rule of life that someone who is good at something makes it look easy. That’s true whether it’s preaching or playing tennis. When our desire is to be faithful to the Lord in every area of our lives, His Spirit will produce fruit in and through us that makes others believe it’s effortless for us. And the fact is, it is! Why? Because it’s not us who produces the fruit in the first place.
The reality is, if your heart beats with desire to please Jesus, it’s very likely you’re far more fruitful than you realize. Just keep walking faithfully and leave the fruit to Him.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 