FRUITFULNESS  IS  THE  EVIDENCE!

Jesus said, “We (His people) will be known by our fruit” (Matthew 7:16 & 20). What do people see when they observe our life?  Do they see a good tree or a bad tree?  Do they see a tree of righteousness or a tree of corruption?  Do they see good fruit or rotten fruit?  Or maybe they see a mixture of both?

It is said that we sum people up by 7% of what they say and 93% of what they do. Maybe that’s a good hint that we should speak less and do more!  In death, most famous people are remembered far more for what they did than what they said.  

• What would Jesus have us do?  

• He would have us put our hand to the plough and go forward.

  In the Parable of the Sower it was the seed that fell on good soil that bore the fruit; it was the one who heard the Word, who understood its content, then put it into practice (Matthew 13:3-23). James, a half-brother of Jesus, said, “Be doers of the Word and not hearers only, otherwise you will deceive yourself” (James 1:22).

• Are we ‘doing?

• Or are we waiting for someone to give us the permission to be ‘doing’?

The seed that falls into good soil WILL PRODUCE – some one hundred times as much as the original seed, some sixty, and some thirty. 

•  How broad is the horizon?  

• Can we expect to reap at the highest level?

When Jonah the Prophet was called by God to go to the wicked city of Nineveh and proclaim its destruction, the seed of the Word at first fell onto poor soil (deaf ears) because Jonah knew that if the Ninevites repented, he would be made to look like a false prophet.  So he boarded a ship and fled to Tarsus.  But when a great storm arose at sea, and Jonah was found to be its cause, upon his suggestion they threw him overboard, not knowing that God had an ‘underwater submarine’ just waiting to take him in.

 Jonah couldn’t outsmart God!

Only a miracle from his loving God could have put him in this amazing holding pen . . . and

When the whale began to feel very sick, it headed straight for shore to depart company with its irritating ‘cargo!’

The seed planted in poor soil, was then very promptly replanted into good soil.  How good was that soil?  Jonah ran on the winds of God, proclaiming boldly, “In forty days Nineveh shall be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4).  What was the result of the seed falling into good ground?  The whole city, from the king down to the poorest citizens, repented of their evil ways, and “God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives, and He changed His mind about them. What He said He would do to them, He didn't do” (Jonah 3:10).

• Jonah’s obedience had a 100% result. 

• Jonah wasn’t a false prophet for he not only knew the Word, but he knew the God of        the Word.

Unfortunately, at first he was temporarily full of self-pity, thinking only of his reputation as a prophet and of his unfulfilled proclamation.  He had a pity party and went into a ‘sulk of dispute’ with God.  But, through circumstances sent by God, the Lord said to him, “Can’t I have pity on Nineveh, the great city . . . who have not known the difference between their right hand and their left . . ?”  (Jonah 4:11).

  Fact:   It is not our job profile to question the Word of the Lord, but it is our job profile to be    planted in good soil in order to be fruitful.

~ Joan Emery