THURSDAY July 4th
Philippians 1:9-11
‘And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.’
Our fourth point from the verses is ‘That they may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.’
I have mentioned before that we planted 5 fruit trees in our garden, 2 cherry, and one each of plum, apple and pear. But so far, they have been very disappointing, but it is still early days, they are young trees. But the more mature they become the more I will be expecting to see fruit! Of the five, the plum is the only one looking promising this year.
How fruitful are we when it comes to bearing or being filled with the fruit of righteousness?
The apple tree should bear apples. The plum, plums, the pear, pears, the cherry, cherries. We who are connected to the true vine, the one who we saw back in 1 Corinthian 1:30 is our righteousness should be producing the fruit of righteousness. That is, we live righteously, we produce fruit that shows that we are connected to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is so essential that each one who claims to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ remains connected to him, Jesus said in the analogy of the vine and branches ‘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. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing’, John 15:4-5.
The fruit of righteousness is also seen in what we term as the fruit of the Spirit, Galatian 5:22-23, our connection to Christ causes his goodness to flow through us, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.’
Once the autumn comes I will be doing some pruning to my fruit trees, with the hope that they may become more fruitful next year, may we each be willing do some pruning in our lives, to get rid of anything that is preventing us from being the bearers of the fruit of righteousness, for John 15:7 continues to say ‘By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.’