What kind of fruit do You seek in me Lord?

My Gospel reading portion this morning was at the beginning of Matthew 3 and I found myself unwilling to read beyond verse 11, being so struck by the reference to the “fruit” in the words of John at verses 8 and 10.  As I considered this, I sensed the weight of thoughts resting upon ponderings on what kind of fruit God wants to see produced in us as believers and His children, in and through His Son, Lord Yeshua.  For me, the seriousness of this was made somewhat easier to take in through the warning of John to the “religious-but-not-right-with-God group of Pharisees and Sadducees at Matthew 3:7-12:

 ⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, ⁹ and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. ¹⁰ And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹ I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

I knew almost immediately that it is important for me to know and keep in mind what kind of fruit God wants to see in me – I believe this is especially so in these darkening days of ‘the beginning of sorrows’ (Matthew 24:8) and ‘perilous times’ (2 Timothy 3:1).

As my thoughts continued in this, Paul’s prayer for the Colossian believers came to mind.  Recorded at Colossians 1:9-12, it says this:

⁹ For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; ¹⁰ that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; ¹¹ strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; ¹² giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 

This was closely followed in my meditations by the words of Peter at 2 Peter 1:5-8 which teaches us how to avoid being/becoming unfruitful.  I ended up reading the passage from verse 2-8 together which says this:

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, ³ as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, ⁴ by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. ⁵ But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

Both these passages are good for prayer for ourselves and other believers in the Body of Messiah Yeshua, in our own church fellowship, locally and throughout the nations.

Glory and thanksgivings belong to Almighty God through Lord Yeshua the Messiah for grace moving my thoughts to and into His light and truth, that my heart may be rightly instructed by the Spirit of Truth this morning.  I am so thankful.

May we be continually instructed and walk in the light of His truth in faith, seeking fruit bearing obedience to the Spirit of God, according to the word of God, that through grace, pleasing fruit be produced and abound in us for and to the glory of our heavenly Father and Yeshua the Messiah our Lord.  Amen.

God bless you.