Blueberries

“If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, ⁴ then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit."  Leviticus 26: 3-4

Ah, the luscious blueberry!  It has always been one of my favorite fruits.  I started liking blueberries when I was a kid after I learned that the blueberry is the only natural "blue" food in all of creation.  Quite an interesting fact no?  Especially when you look at the rest of God's creative color palette - there is blue everywhere from the sky to the lake, but only one thing fit for eating.

As a matter of fact, I had some blueberries on my cereal this morning, as I am apt to do throughout the year.  And they were especially delicious because they are now "in season" in parts of the US.  During the winter season, my blueberries are shipped here from remote locales such as Chile, and the extra travel days just do not do the flavor any favors.  My blueberries this morning were firm, and tartly sweet, while my winter ones are often soft and bland. 

Try as they might on the Grand Haven blueberry farms, they just cannot grow their berries out of season.  There is a time and a season for the blueberry to grow and ripen.

I think that the fruit of Christian discipleship is also seasonal - though not nearly as predictable as the blueberry.

I mean, have you ever had a time in your Christian walk, when you feel as if you are somewhat going through the motions of faith?  You're doing the right things to grow - reading your Bible, praying, worshipping with other believers, spending time with other believers in fellowship - yet, at the end of the day...you don't feel too much closer to Christ than you did 4 months ago.  In fact, there may not even be a lot of excitement to your obedience.  While at other times in your life, say after a mission trip, or a retreat, or a series of relevant sermons, or a great Bible study series - you just have this overwhelming sense of growth and God's nearness, and the love of Jesus.

I think we have these highs and lows in the Christian faith because discipleship fruit bearing is seasonal, and it happens according to the Lord's timing and not our own.  He says to us very simply in the above passage from Leviticus - simply continue to obey and follow Me, and then I will send the rain which will lead to the bearing of your fruit.

Our part is to do the work of obedience and following Christ in mission - God, through His Holy Spirit blesses us with growth exactly when we need it.  Discipleship growth is seasonal growth.

This is not always welcome news from stubborn, independent thinking, "I want it my way, right away" people.  We want to see the results of our obedience NOW!  Discipleship however, is not an instant gratification process.  The process of seed planting, cultivating and tending a plant to maturity is long enough, but then to wait season to season for the harvest of fruit after all of that as well...growing fruit is not an instant gratification process either.

I think the important thing to remember about this seasonal aspect of discipleship is that no matter the season (whether fruit bearing or dormant), we should never give up the discipline of obedience and following Christ.  It is slow at times, and ultimately out of our hands - but the fruit that He produces in us is oh so sweet.


Be God's, Pastor Scott

(bloggers note - this will be my last blog entry for the time being.  I hope it has been useful to my new Church family, not only in understanding my passion for discipleship, but also in priming the pump for wonderful years of fruitful ministry together.  I look forward to serving and living amongst you in community!)

Pruning

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² 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."  John 15: 1-2

At our old home in Drayton Ontario, we had a beautiful Macintosh Apple Tree in the center of our back yard.  It was especially beautiful in the spring when it exploded with splendid pink blossoms.  What wasn't so splendid about our tree though, was the fruit.  Now don't get me wrong, it certainly produced fruit - lots of fruit.  Problem was, that it produced an abundance of small, diseased apples that pretty much ended up rotting on our lawn and providing all of the local wasps and hornets with a bountiful smorgasbord.  There were really only a couple of apples worth eating, and they were at the top of the tree and extremely difficult to get to.

It was towards the end of our time there, that a friend from the fruit belt region of Ontario (after listening to me complain about my tree) schooled me on the process of pruning.  Pruning, he said (without getting too technical) is the cutting off of branches that are not producing fruit or dead, and even cutting off excess branches.  This not only allows the tree to focus it's growth on less branches - and produce more quality fruit, but it also gives more fruit exposure to the growth giving sun.  

The theory behind pruning is that less branches will actually produce more and higher quality fruit.

Isn't it interesting that Jesus describes our heavenly Father as a gardener, and us as a fruit bearing branches inter-connected with Jesus.  As mentioned in a previous post - bearing fruit as a disciple of Christ is a non-negotiable (it's what's expected of us).  Jesus ominously states that those who do not bear the fruit of Christ-like growth in love are cut off.  Perhaps more interesting to me today, is the line from Jesus that our Father will spiritually prune us as we are bearing fruit so that we will be even more fruitful for His sake.

What does this mean for our journey of discipleship?  Sounds painful doesn't it?

I think spiritual pruning is somewhat painful.  Because in spiritual pruning, God removes those sinful things from our lives that are preventing us from fully obeying Him in love.  Many times these sins have been ongoing in our lives for years and years - we have grown accustomed to them and they become a part of who we are.  The removal of these sins is often akin to the feeling Linus must have had when finally forced to part ways with his security blanket.  Sometimes we don't realize just how attached we are to our sinful ways until they are forcefully removed by our Father.  Sins are like dead branches that compete with our fruit bearing branches for our time and energy.  They strangle and choke out our spiritual growth.  Sure we will still produce fruit (because we are connected to the Vine), but it will be a weak batch and not nearly what we could produce sans sins.

But God, through the Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins, forgives us of our sins, and gives us the spiritual strength to repent from our sins.

It really is amazing grace that God would chose to prune us rather than just letting our sins overtake and consume us - He truly wants us to bear fruit!  And while He does the work, we can certainly aid Him in this discipleship process by actively confessing and repenting of those sins that are preventing us from the growth that God so wants us to experience.

Whenever I see a fruit tree, I am reminded about this important discipleship principle - real, fruitful growth cannot occur so long as unrepentant sin remains tangled up in my life.

May God the Gardener continue to be graceful and faithful with us, even as we seek to have sin removed from our lives.



Be God's, Pastor Scott 

Spiritual Fruitopia

"And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.” Ezekiel 47:12

Do any of you remember Fruitopia?  It was a popular fruit drink back in the 90's introduced by the Coca-Cola company to in order to compete with Snapple.  The drinks featured psychedelic logos and colors, along with fun catchy flavor names like Strawberry Passion Awareness, The Grape Beyond, Peaceable Peach, and Lemonade Love and Hope.  Fruitopia is gone now - I'm not sure when it went away, but it serves as a nice introduction to the next discipleship "tree" theme that I'd like to wax eloquent on - and that is fruitfulness.

All trees produce some type of fruit - and by fruit, I do not necessarily mean fruit that we might find in the fruit section at Family Fare or Meijer (see, I'm hip to the West MI grocery stores ;)  Fruit is what a healthy tree produces as a way of spreading seeds in order to reproduce.  A pine tree produces pine cones, a maple tree produces maple keys, an oak tree produces acorns, a plum tree produces plums - you get the idea.  God has blessed each tree with an amazing capacity to create and distribute seeds so that there will always be more trees.  There is a God-designed usefulness to fruitfulness.

Of course, a tree's fruit is more than just the spreading of seeds - a tree's fruit is also useful for providing much of creation (including you and I) with food.  "And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."  Genesis 2:9  We can feast on all kinds of fruitful goodies like pecans, bananas, pears, and walnuts that will in turn help us grow.  There is this real cool sense of equilibrium and symbiosis that God has designed in His creation.

The prophet Ezekiel looked forward to a time of fruitfulness when the people of God would be rooted and growing from the living water of Jesus.  He paints a beautiful picture of what fruitful discipleship looks like: consistent fruit production without fail, and fruit that is useful for nourishment and healing. 

When we are deeply rooted in Christ's love, plugged into the Church's fellowship, and feasting on His Word we will consistently produce spiritual fruit - the evidence of a growing disciple.  Paul describes the fruit of the christian disciple like this; "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."  Galatians 5:22-23  A good question that I ask myself whenever I take the time to consider whether or not I am growing as a disciple of Christ is this:  Am I growing in kindness?  Am I growing in joy?  Am I growing in self-control?  You get the idea...

And like the fruit of Ezekiel's trees, our spiritual fruit is useful for nourishment and healing within the body of Christ, and dare I say, in our communities as well.  For certainly the unleashing of people who are consistently producing spiritual fruit in increasing measure like love, peace, and goodness is going to positively feed and build the rest of the body of Christ.  How much more healthy and vibrant is the church body that is filled with love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness etc.  Sign me up for that congregation, because that is a congregation in which I will be able to flourish in the way that God always intended me to flourish.  But more than that, spiritual fruitfulness will also induce those outside of the body of Christ inward to sample a little of whatever we're having.  I'm convinced that people are starving for these fruits of the Spirit...they are just not sure where to find it.

So as you endeavor to grow as a fruitful disciple of Christ, I would encourage you to become Spiritual Fruitopia to all you come into contact with:  Maybe "Grape, Grape Joy" or "Gentle Peach" or "Kiwi Kindness" or "Just Plum Patient."  (I'll stop now)

Know this and be encouraged by it - God wants you to grow and bear fruit.  And He wants to use you to help others to grow in their discipleship!  How awesome is that!



Be God's, Pastor Scott