Tag: fruit

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Matthew Devotionals 2

When we don’t understand God’s word

crow

When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. (Matthew 13:19)

His disciples approached him and said, “Explain to us… (Matthew 13:36)

When we see something in God’s word that we don’t understand, what do we do?

Do we simply say, “I don’t understand,” and never give it another thought, allowing Satan to easily snatch it away so that it never bears fruit in our lives?

Or are we like Jesus’ disciples, caring enough to humbly ask, “Explain to us…”?

Lord, give me the heart of a disciple, seeking understanding, bearing fruit.

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Matthew Devotionals 2

More than watching our words

Fruit tree

Either make the tree good and its fruit will be good, or make the tree bad and its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit…

For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. (Matthew 12:33-34)

One thing I try to be conscious of is the words that come out of my mouth. I want to be careful about what I say.

But it struck me today that more than being careful about my words, I need to really search my heart. Is my heart spiritually healthy?

If my heart is spiritually healthy, my words will be healthy and life-giving.

But if there are rotten things in my heart, rotten things will come out.

And so I’m praying today, “Lord, search my heart. You know it well. Root out any rotten things lingering there.”

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Mark Devotionals

Returning empty-handed?

fig tree

If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it… (Mark 11:3)

The next day when they went out from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find out if there was anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves. (Mark 11:12-13)

I don’t know that I’ve ever connected these two verses before. In both cases, the Lord needs something.

But in the first he receives what he asks, and in the second, he doesn’t.

It just made me think. “When the Lord needs something of me, how often does he come away empty-handed?”

Lord Jesus, may you never return empty-handed when approaching me for fruit.

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Luke Devotionals

Father, what belongs to you?

Surrender

“Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it have?”

“Caesar’s,” they said.

“Well then,” he told them, “give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” (Luke 20:24-25)

Father, what belongs to you? Just ten percent of my salary?

No, all I have, all I am, belongs to you.

You have engraved your image, your name on me. (Genesis 1:26-27; Revelation 3:12)

I am yours.

So let me never question your authority or the authority of your Son as the chief priests and scribes did. (Luke 20:2)

Instead, with a humble and grateful heart, may I always give you the fruit you seek from me, never sending you away empty-handed. (Luke 20:11)

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Matthew Devotionals

The fruit God seeks

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruit. (Matthew 21:43)

As I read today’s chapter and especially those words, I was reminded of John the Baptist’s words to the Pharisees and Sadducees in chapter 3.

Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance…The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3:8-10)

What is the fruit God is seeking? It’s the fruit consistent with repentance.

It’s what the tax collectors and prostitutes showed and that’s why they would enter God’s kingdom and the religious leaders who refused to repent wouldn’t (Matthew 21:31-32).

That difference in attitude was also shown in the parable of the two sons. (28-30)

And the fig tree Jesus cursed and the parable of the vineyard he told is a warning to those who don’t show that fruit consistent with repentance. (18-19, 33-34)

Repentance is not just a change of mind, a mere mental assent to the things God teaches. Repentance leads to the fruit of a changed heart and a changed life.

As we say at my church, it’s a life of “head, heart, hands.”

God’s word enters our heads. It then transforms our hearts. And as a result, our lives change.

That’s the fruit God is looking for.

Is that the fruit you’re producing?

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Matthew Devotionals

Your king is coming to you

Matthew

Say to the daughter of Zion,
Behold, your king is coming to you. (Matthew 21:5, ESV)

Those words struck me this morning.

“Behold, your king is coming to you.”

The first time Jesus came, he came humbly and mounted on a donkey, for the purpose of dying for our sins.

The next time he comes, it will be in power, to judge and to save. (Hebrews 9:27-28)

We see that throughout this chapter.

He brought judgment on those rejected him and his authority. But to the sinners who repented of their sins and believed in him, he gave salvation.

That is the message we need to preach.

“Your King is coming. He is coming to reap the fruit of faith, repentance, and righteousness. And if you do not produce that fruit, you will be judged.”

Lord, may we be people that bear your fruit each day, and preach your gospel to this lost and dying world.

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Mark Devotionals

Responding to God’s Word

Mark

In a lot of ways, this passage is connected to what I talked about yesterday: our response to Jesus’ authority.

Today, the question is, “How do we respond to His word?” You see this in the parable of the soils, but also in these words:

Consider carefully what you hear…With the measure you use, it will be measured to you— and even more.

Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. (Mark 4:24-25)

In short, if you hear God’s word, and it bears fruit in your life, God will give you more and more wisdom and understanding.

But if you harden your heart to his word, if you abandon it when trials and hardship come, or if you let it get choked out by other things, you’ll lose the wisdom and understanding God had previously given you.

How about you? Does God’s word bear fruit in your life?

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Colossians

A prayer for all believers

Praying the Bible

If you ever want to pray a prayer for a fellow Christian but are not sure how to do it, and you want to go beyond a simple, “bless so-and-so,” you don’t have to look any further than the prayers of Paul.

Time and again in his letters, he gives us wonderful models of how to pray for others according to God’s will.

We see one of those models here in Colossians chapter 1. Paul had apparently never met these Colossians, but had only heard of them and their faith in Christ through a man named Epaphras.

But when Paul heard about the fruit that was born in their hearts through the gospel, he rejoiced. More, he prayed for them a very specific prayer. What did he pray for?

First, he prayed that God would fill them with the knowledge of His will with all wisdom and understanding. That is something that we all need as Christians. Why?

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. (Colossians 1:10)

If we want to please God and bear fruit for him, then we need to know his will in our lives.

As he fills us with his wisdom and understanding, we start to understand who he himself is. We understand how he thinks. We understand what is important to him.

In short, we come to truly know him, not just about him, particularly as he imparts his power into our lives. That’s why Paul prays that they would be,

strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. (11-12)

God doesn’t want us to live this Christians life based on our own strength.

Many people go through trials with endurance and patience, but no joy. Why? Because they are resting on their own strength, not God’s.

But Paul’s prayer is not that the Colossians would patiently endure their trials in their own strength. Rather, he prays that God’s power would fill them so that they could not only endure, but do so with joy.

That each day, they would focus not on themselves, but on God. To remember that all they have as Christians is not based on their own efforts, but on what God has done. For he is the one who qualified us to share in his inheritance, not us.

Not only that,

he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (13-14)

Again, all the work is of him. He rescued us from out of darkness. He brought us into the kingdom of his Son. And it is in Christ, not ourselves, that we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin.

Yet many Christians forget that. And because we do so, we start trying to live on our own wisdom and strength, and in the process, lose our joy.

But when we are filled with his wisdom, knowledge, and power, when we remember all that Christ has done for us and that all we have comes from him and not ourselves, then we find joy.

So as you pray for your Christian family members, friends, and other brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t just pray a general, “God bless them.” Pray as Paul did for the Colossians.

And pray that God would do these things in you as well.

How are you praying?

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Philippians

What God is doing in us

Paul in prison

This letter that Paul wrote to the Philippians is one that is filled with joy, despite all the trials Paul was going through.

Paul was writing this in prison, probably from Rome, and yet time and again, you see the words “rejoice” and “joy” in this letter.

And one thing that gave him great joy was what God was doing in the lives of the Philippians. The church in Philippi was the first ever to be started in Europe.

It started when Paul met a wealthy woman named Lydia who feared God, but didn’t really know anything about Jesus. But when Paul preached the gospel to her, she and her family were saved.  (Acts 16:11-15).

Paul did have some problems there, however, getting thrown into prison. But even there, Paul made an impact, as through him, his jailer and the jailer’s family also became Christians.  (Acts 16:16-40)

That was the beginning of the church in Philippi. And that church became one of his main supporters in ministry.

And in their partnership with him in the gospel, he saw the good work God was doing in them. And so he wrote,

In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.  (Philipians 1:4-6)

One of the amazing things of the gospel of Christ is that it starts with grace and it ends with grace.

It is God who reached out to us to save us at a time when we had no thought of him. Through his grace, he pulled us out of filth of our sin and washed us clean by the blood of Jesus shed on the cross.

But God doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t just say to us, “Well, I cleaned you up. Now you’re on your own.”

Rather, Paul says that God continues to work in us even now, and will never stop working in us until we are made complete on the day that Jesus returns for us.

In what way is God working in us? Paul tells us through his prayer for the Philippians, saying,

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ–to the glory and praise of God.  (9-11)

Paul prays here that the fruit of love, love for God and love for others, would abound more and more in our lives.

How does it grow? It grows as we come to know God better. As we understand more deeply how great his love is, it causes our own love to blossom, not only for God, but for those around us.

And as that happens, we start to understand just how God intends us to live. We start to make not only good choices, but the best choices. And as we do that, all of God’s fruit of righteousness starts to blossom in our lives.

But note what Paul says here:  this fruit of righteousness comes not from our own efforts to change. Rather, it comes as we are joined to him. Like Jesus said, he is the vine, we are the branches. Apart from him, we can do nothing.  (John 15:5)

So what do we get from this? Two things.

First, don’t get discouraged by the sin you still see in your life. God started a good work in you. It started at the cross. It continued as he called you and you responded to him. And God will continue working in you until you are complete.

Second, stay plugged in to Jesus. That is the key to change in your life. Not mere self-discipline or effort. But Jesus living his life in you.

And as he does, you will see more and more what God is doing in you to his glory…and to your joy.

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1 Corinthians

Who we follow

1 Corinthians

As we go through life, there are any number of people that we look up to as our examples, starting with our parents, then teachers and coaches, to pastors and so on.

And hopefully, all of them are good mentors to us. But Paul reminds us here to be very careful about who we choose to follow.

There are many people, even in the Christian world, who sound good. But as Paul says,

The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power. (1 Corinthians 4:20)

And so Paul said when he came to Corinth,

I will find out not only how these arrogant people are talking, but what power they have. (1 Corinthians 4:19)

That’s the question we need to ask ourselves. What power is behind the people we are following?

Is it God? Or is it something else? Natural charisma? Money? Position? Or is there even an evil spiritual power behind them?

How do we tell what kind of power is behind them? By the fruit that they bear. Jesus tells us,

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

By their fruit you will recognize them. (Matthew 7:15-16)

What kind of fruit do we look for? The fruit of their teaching and the fruit of their lives.

Paul himself points that out when talking of Timothy and himself.

For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord.

He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. (1 Corinthians 4:17)

When we find such people in our lives, we should follow their example. As Paul said,

Therefore I urge you to imitate me. (1 Corinthians 4:16)

But when their fruit is rotten, we need to run as quickly and far away as possible.

How about you? Who are you following?

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John John 15

Chosen to be fruitful

John

This is one of the most famous passages in the Gospels in which Jesus shows us a beautiful illustration of our relationship with God.

Here he calls himself the vine. In the Old Testament, Israel was referred to as a vine. They were to bear fruit for God so that the nations would see them and be drawn to God.

But through their disobedience they bore only bad fruit, and as a result, God brought judgment upon them. (Isaiah 5:1–7, Jeremiah 2:21)

So now Jesus doesn’t just call himself the vine, but the “true” vine. A vine whose fruit would not only draw people to God, but save them.

And Jesus tells us we are the branches to the vine. He tells us in verse 16,

I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. (John 15:16)

What does it mean to bear fruit? I think the first thing it means is the fruit of a changed life.

Paul, after talking about the kind of sinful life we once lived, tells us,

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self‑control. (Galatians 5:22–23)

In other words, if we are Christians, it should be evidenced in our lives. Our lives should be different from what they once were.

And as our lives change, we’ll see fruit in that we’ll start to make an impact on the people around us. People will see God himself in us, be drawn to him, and be saved.

That’s what God originally intended for Israel, and that’s what God intends for us now. Peter puts it this way,

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

You were chosen to be fruitful. Are you?

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Matthew Matthew 12

What comes out of our mouths

Matthew

It always bothers me when people swear. It especially bothers me when Christians swear. Because what we say shows what’s in our hearts. Our words show the state of our hearts.

When Jesus heard the Pharisees saying he was demon possessed, he told them,

“Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.

For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:33-37)

In other words, for such blasphemy to come out of their mouths, their hearts had to be utterly corrupt.

That’s why he says we’ll be judged for every word we speak, even the “careless” ones. Our words show exactly what’s in our hearts.

If our heart is full of good fruit, such words can’t help but flow out of our mouths. But if our heart is full of rot, such words will certainly flow out of our mouths as well.

It’s impossible for us to say, “Oops. How did that come out?”

It came out because that’s what’s in our hearts. And if that’s what’s in our hearts, we need to repent.

If vitriol is in our hearts, it will show in our speech. If bitterness is in our hearts, that’s what will come out. If perversion is in our hearts, that’s what will flow out from our mouths.

Are these things in your heart? What’s coming out of your mouth?

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Luke Luke 6

What is in your heart

Luke

One thing that I notice about Jesus is that while he will repeat illustrations, he’ll apply it to different situations.

In Matthew, we see him apply the idea of a good tree bearing good fruit and a bad tree bearing bad fruit to false prophets. And his point is to test the fruit (both the lives and the teaching) of those you listen to.

But in Luke, he uses this illustration to challenge us to test our own hearts. The context of it in Luke is the judging of others, condemning those around us, and forgiveness.

And having talked about that, he then says,

No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.

People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.

For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:43-45)

What is Jesus saying here? He’s asking us, what kind of trees are we? What is in our hearts? Is it judgmentalism? Is it condemnation? Or is it forgiveness and grace?

How can we tell what is in our hearts? By the fruit of our words. Because Jesus tells us that from the overflow of our hearts, our mouths speak.

If our hearts are full of condemnation and judgmentalism, that is what will come pouring out of our mouths.

But if our hearts are full of God’s forgiveness and grace, that’s what will come pouring out of our mouths.

A key point to note here is that Jesus associates a judgmental and condemning heart to a bad tree. But he associates a gracious and forgiving heart to a good tree.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is, “What is coming out of our mouths?”

Are we constantly criticizing and judging other people? Or are our words full of grace? Because the fruit of our words show just what kind of trees we are.

What kind of tree are you?