Fruit-bearing Christ Followers

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

Every Christ follower should be a fruit producer. And, by the way, they shouldn’t be a “One-Crop-Wonder!” Bearing fruit is an ongoing process of the spiritual life. Peter wrote about this, and in essence said, if you are growing in your faith, you will produce fruit. How do we grow in faith? By adding things to it: goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love [from 2 Peter 1:5-7].

Fruit-bearing is the best indicator that a person is the Christ follower they claim to be. It is the criteria Jesus used to distinguish true prophets from false prophets [see Matthew 7:15-20].

Fruit-bearing isn’t limited to one thing. Many righteous acts in the Bible are referred to as fruit — winning souls, ministering to the saints, support of ministry, lips of praise, and prayer — just to mention a few.

Undergirding our fruit-bearing is the Holy Spirit that produces fruit in our lives — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — [Galatians 5:22-23). 

As the Holy Spirit keeps producing His fruit in us, and as we keep adding to our faith, as Peter said, we will never be useless or unfruitful; our faith will never be dead or ineffective!

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:8