time for fruit

The bible has much to say about fruit, it tells us that we can know the heart of people by their fruit.  A man can make all kinds of claims concerning his association with the Lord, but his fruit will tell the real story.
 
John 15:5 I am the tree, you are the branches: he that abides in Me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for apart from Me you can do nothing.
 
Now you can readily see that a man is not known by his word but by his fruit.  What is this fruit Jesus is talking about?  All Bible fruit originates with Jesus.  He is the tree trunk and we are the branches.  If we produce good fruit, it comes from the tree, it comes directly from Jesus.
 
John 15:4 Abide in Me, as a branch cannot bear fruit of itself.
 
If the life of God does not flow through us, we cannot produce right fruit.  Relationship is everything.  We cannot observe a person and know anything about their connection to the Master.  When folks come to church they are so sweet and spiritual but that is not the evidence of a solid connection to Jesus.
 
Luke 6:26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!  For so did their fathers to the false prophets.
 
If any man is highly regarded by the whole world, that man is compromising.  He is telling everyone what they want to hear.  If you are totally committed to living for Jesus, some people will hate you because they first hated Jesus.  The only people who will respect you are those who respect Jesus.  If it’s important to you to be loved by everyone, you will never get close enough to the tree to bear its fruit.  Jesus would never compromise the Word, it cost Him some of the disciples and ultimately His life.  What is this fruit that the Master wants us to bear?
 
John 14:12 Truly I say unto you, he that believes and trusts Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to My Father.
 
The fruit God wants us to produce is the supernatural works of Jesus.  They come from the tree, through the branches and into the world so the world can see the glory of God.  I have several apple trees, some branches never produce any apples, some branches produce a few and others are full of fruit.  If I take the nonproducing branches and prune them, they will begin to have apples.  We are God’s branches and He wants us to produce His fruit, so He prunes us of the things that are detrimental to our capability.
 
Some of our branches have some things attached to us that impede our potential, so the farmer (God) trims us of all the unproductive growths.  Early on it is unpleasant to lose things we habitually held near and dear.  But when we see how much more God can use us to produce, we can’t help but to praise Him.  It is always the season for the God kind of fruit, we need not wait for the ideal season.  Time for all the branches to bear fruit!    

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