In an earlier post I talked about being fruitful. You will bear fruit, everyone does, the question is whether or not the fruit is good, lasts or not. If your mindset is to bear good fruit then you have a context to determine whether or not your words and actions accomplish this goal or work against it.
We’ve all seen rotten fruit. It smells. It can also be harmful to one’s health if eaten – but we can also see/smell if the fruit is good. When it is good the fruit is beneficial, tastes good and we enjoy it. But what IS good fruit?
The answer is found in scripture. John chapter 15 talks about fruit – how to bear good fruit, how the Father is glorified when you bear fruit. It’s amazingly simple – to bear good fruit, abide in Him. Jesus tells us (verse 5) that when we abide in Him we bear much fruit. But without Him we can’t bear good fruit.
When we look to what Jesus indicated good fruit is we see that one of the components that make up ‘good fruit’ is truth – speaking the truth in love. In our words, to have good fruit we need to always speak the truth but speak it in love. Love gives a context to the truth – but truth is never to be compromised. Speaking truth in love is not qualifying truth to make it more acceptable or softening truth so any word of admonish is easier to acknowledge.
The fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) tells us what we need to cultivate, what we need to practice. These are character points and as we portray them we produce good fruit to honor the Father.
