- We shall discuss this study
under three sub-headings:
1. Understanding Fruitfulness
2. Understanding The Principles
of Fruitfulness
3. Understanding The Areas of
Fruitfulness in Our Lives
1. Understanding Fruitfulness:
i. Fruit-fullness is a sign of
life:
it is a source of deep satisfaction
- the fulfillment of purpose.
ii. Fruit-fullness is what the
gardener expects when he plants a seed:
- to grow a vineyard.
iii. Fruit-fullness is the
natural byproduct of the healthy believer and is the result of several
important elements at work in the believer.
- A fully devoted disciple is a
fruit-full disciple-growing and maturing.
- A fruitful person is one who is
implanted and abiding in Christ - growing, increasing, abounding, flourishing,
and reproducing much fruit. John 15: 1-2.
iv. Fruitfulness is both a
command from God and a blessing from Him. It is a sign of spiritual health and
life.
v. Fruitfulness is a life of
fulfillment and purpose, and a life in partnership with God. John 15:8.
2. Understanding The Principles
of Fruitfulness:
- How do we become fruitful, and
what is the fruit that God expects? Ps 1: 1-3, Ps 92: 13-14.
- A life totally separated from
sinners and sins and that have pleasure in discovering the will of God and
doing them completely shall be a fruitful life.
- Our lives cannot produce fruits
unless we abide in Christ and He abides in us.
- Certain processes are necessary
for fruitfulness to take place:
1. The Preparation Process:
Both the seed and the soil has to
be prepared ready for planting.
- The seed is the word of God,
and the soil is our heart. We need to prepare our heart ready to be able to
received the viable seed of the word of God.
- Jam 1:21 Therefore putting
aside all filthiness and overflowing of evil, receive in meekness the implanted
Word, which is able to save your souls.
2. The Planting Process:
After the soil has been prepared
ready, the actual planting must be done.
- This is by allowing the word of
God to produce faith in our lives, so that we believe it and then be prepared
to put it into practice.
Jam 1:22But become doers of the Word, and not hearers only,
deceiving your own selves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the Word
and not a doer, he is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror. 24
For he studied himself and went his way, and immediately he forgot what he was
like. 25 But whoever looks into the perfect Law of liberty and
continues in it, he is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one
shall be blessed in his doing.
3. The Purging Process:
Shortly after planting, weeding
will be necessary, so that all unwanted plants that can affect the well being
of the real planted crop can be taken away
- The weed may include all
ungodly relationships and association arouund us, it can also be the cares of
this world.
- 1Ti 6: 9But they who will be rich fall into temptation and
a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which plunge men into
destruction and perdition.10 For the love of money is a root of all
evils, of which some having lusted after, they were seduced from the faith and
pierced themselves through with many sorrows.11 But you, O man of
God, flee these things and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love,
patience, and meekness.
2Ti 2:3 Therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of
Jesus Christ. 4 No one who wars tangles with the affairs of this
life, that he may please him who chose him to be a soldier.
4. The Pruinning Process:
This is a process of trimming of excess
after the tree is fully grown, this will allow for maximum illumination and
aeration necessary for better production of fruits.
- As we grow, we must submit to
the various dealings of the Lord in our lives, so that we can be more fruitful.
- Col 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard, do
not cease to pray for you, and to desire that you might be filled with the
knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. 10
that you might walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing, being fruitful in every
work and increasing in the knowledge of God, 11 being empowered with
all power, according to the might of His glory, to all patience and
long-suffering with joyfulness.12 giving thanks to the Father, who
has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.
3. Understanding the Areas of Fruitfulness in Our Lives:
1. Biological Fruitfulness:
- God desired that as His
children, we should be fruitful biologically. We are to raise godly children by
training our children in the ways of the Lord.
1Ti 3:2Then it behooves the overseer to be without reproach,
husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, well-ordered, hospitable, apt at
teaching. 3 not a drunkard, not contentious, not greedy of ill gain,
but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous,4 ruling his own house
well, having children in subjection with all honor.5 (For if a man
does not know to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of
God?)
2. Spiritual Fruitfulness:
- We are expected to live a life
pleasing unto God at all times, and to be growing in our relationship with God.
- 2Pe 3:17 Therefore, beloved, knowing beforehand, beware
lest being led away with the error of the lawless, you fall from your own
steadfastness.18 But grow in grace and in knowledge of our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.
Amen
3. Marital Fruitfulness:
- As Christians, God desired us
to enjoy our marriages and not to endure it. There may be crises, but we must
know how to manage them with the wisdom of God, so that the Home can be
peaceful.
- 1Pe 3:1 Likewise, wives, be in subjection to your own
husbands, so that if any do not obey the Word, they may also be won without the
Word by the conduct of the wives, 2 having witnessed your chaste
behavior in the fear of God.3 Of whom let not be the adorning of
garments, or outward braiding of hair and wearing of gold, or of putting on
clothing,4 but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which
is not corruptible, the meek and quiet spirit, which is of great price in the
sight of God.5 For so once indeed the holy women hoping in God
adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands;6 as
Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose children you became, doing good
and fearing no terror.7 Likewise, husbands, live together according
to knowledge, giving honor to the wife as to the weaker vessel, the female, as
truly being co-heirs together of the grace of life, not cutting off your
prayers.
4. Professional Fruitfulness:
- Even God wants us to prosper
and be fruitful in our vocations and professions. All the people He called to
Kingdom business were not failures in their various professions. They were
neither lazy nor idle.
- 1Ki 19:19 And he left there, and found Elisha the son of
Shaphat, and he was plowing; twelve pairs of oxen were before him, and he was
with the twelfth. And Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle on him.20
And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah, and said, Please, let me kiss my
father and my mother, and I will follow you. And he said to him, Go back again,
for what have I done to you?. 21 And he turned back from him, and
took a yoke of oxen and killed them, and boiled their flesh with the
instruments of the oxen, and gave it to the people, and they ate. And he arose
and went after Elijah, and ministered to him.
5. Financial Fruitfulness:
- Jesus was poor so that we can
be rich through His poverty.
- 2Co 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that, though He was rich, for your sakes He became poor, in order that you
might be made rich through His poverty.
- It is part of our financial
fruitfulness to get money only by Godly means, and to use our money for the
purpose and the glory of God.
- 1Ti 6:17 Charge the rich in this world that they be not
high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, He offering
to us richly all things to enjoy,18 that they do good, that they be
rich in good works, ready to share, to be generous,19 laying up in
store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may
lay hold on eternal life.
6. Ministerial Fruitfulness:
- We have been given different
ministerial assignments for the purpose of expanding the kingdom of God.
- We must be fruitful in this
area by being committed and faithful in our calling and services in the Church
and the kingdom of God.
Eph 4:11 And truly He gave some to be apostles, and some to
be prophets, and some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers. 12
for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the
edifying of the body of Christ.13 And this until we all come into
the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full-grown
man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;14 so
that we no longer may be infants, tossed to and fro and carried about by every
wind of doctrine, in the dishonesty of men, in cunning craftiness, to the wiles
of deceit.
- 1Ti 5:17 Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of
double honor, especially those who labor in Word and doctrine.18 For
the Scripture says, "You shall not muzzle the ox treading out grain,"
and, "The laborer is worthy of his reward."