In scripture, God uses the image of fruit to depict the result of His work through us.
So when a Christ-follower says, “I want to see more fruit in my life,” he shows a desire to be used more effectively by God and to see more results of God’s work in him.
Image: Women on the Fence
A tree is a helpful illustration (developed from Virgil Dugan (president of The Tijeras Foundation), that shows how God produces fruit in our lives.
A Tree’s Roots: Faith
When a tree’s root system is healthy and strong, the tree yields a larger harvest. Arborists – tree experts – understand that a tree’s roots extend deep into the soil and beyond the base of the trunk. That is why in order to get the most fruit, arborists feed tree roots at the furthest extension of the leaf canopy.
Your faith is like a tree’s roots. In order to produce healthier (and more) spiritual fruit, your faith must be deep and wide. God feeds your faith the most at the points where you are extended and stretched, away from where you are usually centered – whether during a specific season of challenge or in a particular life area where you may not be comfortable. To produce more spiritual fruit, stretch your faith.
A Tree’s Trunk: Hope
A sapling’s trunk is slender. It strengthens as the tree’s branches reach up towards the sun and grow, but not when the trunk bends or is compromised by conditions.
Hope is not derived from studying current events or by bending to the world’s ways of approaching problems. Both are limiting. Instead, true hope looks upward to what God will do and what He will reveal. It is this attitude of expectation that brings pleasure to God: “The Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love” (Psalm 147:11, NIV). Hope grows stronger the more you focus on how God is operating in the lives of His people and the more you consider what He will do. To produce more spiritual fruit, focus your expectations on God’s movement.
A Tree’s Fruit: Love
An orange tree takes 5-7 years to produce its first crop of citrus … a pecan tree needs up to 15 years to yield nuts … an oak tree may be 20-30 years old before its first acorn drops to the ground. A healthy harvest can take time.
But a tree without fruit is incomplete. Fruit is worth the wait.
Likewise, a Christian life without the fruit of love is incomplete. It can be easy to become satisfied living the Christian life stuck in faith and hope, especially if love for others is a long time coming. Comfortable spirituality is our human default mode.
Less natural, but more productive, is perseverance. Paul tells us that of the Christ-like virtues, “the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13, NIV). Christ-like love is the culmination of a persistent faith and well-directed hope. To produce more spiritual fruit, persevere.
If you are eager to see more spiritual fruit in your life, feed your roots of faith – and others’ roots, too – where they are stretched. Look with hopeful expectation to God’s movement through other Christ-followers, rather than in the world.
And press on. As God uses you more, you’ll experience more love – more fruit – in your life.
