From Barrenness to Fruitfulness
How fruitful is your life? Are there areas of your life that are barren? Are there places where you need to cultivate the ground to bear fruit in your spiritual life?
God desires for each of his followers to produce fruit and to live fruitful lives.
Without cultivating and fertilizing the metaphorical ground around the tree that is our spiritual lives, we can become barren and we will not bear fruit.
In Luke’s gospel account, Jesus told a parable of the bare fig tree, saying, “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9, ESV).
Without cultivating fertile ground, we will not produce the fruitfulness God desires in our lives.
When we do not produce fruit, we must be proactive and cultivate the ground around us so that we are able to produce the kingdom fruit God desires for our lives.
If we refuse to bear fruit in our lives, judgement awaits us as we are cut down or dug up.
With his help, God is patient and is waiting for us to do the cultivation work, and the fertilization needed, to produce kingdom fruitfulness in our lives.
May we live fruitful lives as we cultivate and fertilize the ground around us and experience the flourishing God has designed for each of our lives.
A Collect for the Third Sunday in Lent: “Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
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