WHAT KIND OF FRUIT ARE YOU PRODUCING?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard:

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”

Now I will tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard:

“I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines He delighted in. And He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.

Isaiah 5:1-7

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus had these words to say about the end product of the way people live their lives:

“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.” Luke 6:43-45

Those who live good, seeking God’s righteousness and remaining faithful to His word, will, and way will bear good fruit. Conversely, those who so choose to reject God for sin and wickedness will bear bad fruit out of the evil in their heart. There is no middle ground. You either yield good fruit or you yield bad fruit.

So that bears the question for today: What kind of fruit are you producing?

Through our study of Isaiah so far, we have seen two primary recurring themes.

The first is the theme of judgment on Israel who had turned from God to worship of idols and false gods. That judgment came in the way of God removing His protection from His people who came under destructive siege and captivity at the hands of first, the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians.

The second theme is one of redemption and restoration. For the punishment that God levied on His people had an ending point and at His appointed time, the people of Israel would return to God’s favor and would be permitted to return to the holy land He set aside for them to rebuild the hallowed city of Jerusalem.

As Isaiah, Chapter 5 opens, we find God using an interesting analogy to speak about how His chosen people had gone astray. Look again at His words again here:

I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard:

My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.

“Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. What more could have been done for My vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad?”

Now I will tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard:

“I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it.”

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the nation of Israel, and the people of Judah are the vines He delighted in. And He looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. vv 1-7

Note here that the vineyard God speaks about is none other than the nation Israel, a nation He once delighted in until they chose to be disobedient to His will, trading in justice for inequity, righteousness for evil and wickedness. God had made His people a beautiful vineyard but His people had bore bad fruit through their transgression and apostasy toward their Maker and Creator.

As a result, God took away everything that served to protect and preserve His once beautiful vineyard. This resulted in the vineyard becoming a wasteland after being destroyed and trampled.

Friends, we should see a stark warning here as we consider the question posed by this devotion. For if we choose to bear bad fruit as the Israelites did more than 2,000 years ago, we can expect to experience the same judgment and consequences for our insolence.

And going back to Jesus, we find this additional guidance from our Lord and Savior:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.”

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in Me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be My disciples.”  John 15:1-8

The principle is simple. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. If we stay connected to Him, then we will bear good fruit and do so in abundance to the glory of God the Father. No one can bear this fruit on their own.

If you choose to not remain in Christ, then your branch will die off, unable to bear fruit and only useful to be used for kindling a fire. Indeed, God’s judgment one day will bring a lake of fire and many detached branches from Jesus will be burned on that day.

So to close, we now know how to come up with the answer regarding the kind of fruit we produce. If you are connected to Jesus in your life, then you will be producing good fruit because Jesus only produces that kind of fruit. But if you choose to live apart from Him, then your branch will be worthless, unable to bear anything of use.

My prayer for all of you is that you will always be connected to Jesus, the One who always ensures we read a harvest of good fruit through the ways we serve Him and others. I can speak from experience and with full confidence that there’s no better way to live

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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