Bearing fruit

If God has adopted us as His children when we turned from sin and accepted the salvation He offered us, we are convinced that this was purely by His grace, or unmerited favour towards us. What must be our response then? It should be a strong desire to bear fruit for Him, because that is what will glorify Him (Jn.15:8). The most common understanding among Christians is that we should share the gospel with others and bring as many people as possible into the kingdom of God. For them, the question that is often asked is, "How many people have you brought to the Lord?" After I became a Christian, what people told me was, "We are saved, to save!" But this is a narrow way of understanding salvation.

Certainly, announcing the Gospel and leading people to salvation is a great way of bearing fruit for Christ. That is the ministry of evangelism. But there are many other ministries also through which we are to serve God, according to the gifting God gives each one of us (1Co.12:6,7). All of us are not equipped to do everything. We must bear fruit in whatever ministries God entrusts to us, and we must aim to do it better and better so that God can receive glory.

But salvation does not end with forgiveness of sins, and it remains for us to be set free from the power of sin and be transformed to become like Christ in our character. So, another way we all ought to glorify God is through our witness as representatives of Jesus in the different aspects of our daily life. If we don't pay clear attention to this, what will happen is that our sinful nature will cause us to produce fruit of the flesh through our life, instead of the fruit of the Holy Spirit working in us. Instead of bringing glory to God, this may bring shame.

Jesus said that we could not produce this fruit unless we abided in Him (Jn.15:4). We must remember that the fruit we are thinking about here are not the development of our natural talents or abilities but the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in us. Then we must also realise that the Holy Spirit will not be able to do His work in us unless we are 'abiding' in Christ. This is where many Christians seem to be making a mistake, when they seem to be assuming that once they have come to Christ, the Holy Spirit will sanctify them and make them like Jesus without any requirement on their side. No. God will never force us to choose salvation or behave in a certain way. He works in us empowering and guiding us, but then we are expected to work it out in practical action (Php.2:12,13). We must see these two verses together.

If God finds that we from our side want to bear fruit for Him, He will begin to prune us (Jn.15:2). Pruning is a way of removing parts of a tree or plant that will hinder its growth. When God prunes us, by showing us how He wants to remove certain parts of our thinking, speaking or behaviour, we have to agree with Him and cooperate. If we resist this work of God, we cannot glorify God by bearing fruit.