“By this the Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and prove to be My disciples”
Over the past couple of weeks, I have wondered what bearing good fruit means. Many of us have been taught that we must be faithful in the situations we face and that we must be productive – we must be fruitful.
Throughout the Bible, we see commands that tell us to love, serve, be kind, be humble, be faithful and to die to ourselves. For a long time, I have read these commands and seen them as just that – commands to be obeyed – whether I feel like loving or not, I need to love; whether I feel like serving or not, I need to serve.
However, here’s what I’ve realised – God is not glorified by begrudging submission.
What if those commands are not simply commands, but rather, examples of fruits that we need to bear?
In John 15, Jesus said, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me…By this the Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.”
See that? It says God is glorified when we bear much fruit and so prove to be Jesus’ disciples.
I have tried over and over again to work hard, to be loving, to serve, to be patient, all because I believed that that is how a follower of Jesus is supposed to be.
But consciously doing all these things is simply me relying on my own strength, and that has always, always proven to be a horrible idea. Nothing has ever let me down as much as relying on my own strength has.
Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control – these are fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). They are by-products of being connected to the Root – the plant’s source of life – by abiding in Jesus.
The deeper we abide in Jesus, the more life we are filled with, which in turn results in us loving and serving, not by our own effort, but by grace. We find joy in obeying those commands.
The fruits are only an evidence of life – they’re not the source, nor the primary goal.
So the statement shouldn’t be, “I need to work hard to love and serve because I follow Jesus”, but rather, we should be asking, “Am I abiding in Him in a way that makes me delight in loving and serving?”
When we abide in Him, all that He is, all of him, is poured into us, and as it is poured into us, it overflows into those around us. This is how we bear much fruit and prove to be His disciples.
Maybe the reason you struggle with being a better person is because you’re trying hard to be one. Stop relying on your strength; start spending more time in His presence. Let it overwhelm you and fill you, and let it reach the point where it begins to flow out of you.
The goal is not perfection, but progress. And where there’s no progress, there should be questions – not what on what I need to do to show that I am a disciple, but a reflection on if the fruits of the Holy Spirit are being borne by my life, and if not, how I need to reconnect to the Vine.
“To will is of man but to will right is of grace” – Augustine
