Fruit is Success?

“Leaders: God has not called you to bear fruit. He has called you to be faithful--Jud Wilhite Catalyst 2013

It is easy to nod your heard and agree with this statement. But what about following a team loss of an important game? Did you play faithfully? Yes! You lost? Yes, and you still feel bad? Yes! We count wins and losses. Everybody does! Success, its definition makes the difference.

In “bible” terms as we define it success “bearing fruit” is more people more programs and larger budgets right? We will pay the obligatory lip service to the “biblical” concept of faithfulness but we measure by buildings, budgets and bodies. If a church is growing numerically and building buildings then they are “bearing fruit” and therefore successful.

After posting the above quote a friend challenged the idea using Jesus words found in John 15:1-5.

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vineyard keeper. ² Every branch in Me that does not produce fruit He removes, and He prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. (HCSB)

Having read the above we from within our culture and its definition of success would say we need to bear fruit then we are successful. Verse two says that right? Agree? However, verses 4 and 5 are where Jesus defines success differently. Only as we remain in Him can we produce fruit. We cannot produce fruit by ourselves. Let me take one more step of application here, we may be the branches but it is Jesus alone who produces fruit. You may remember the “fruit of the Spirit” it is just that fruit from the Holy Spirit not the believer who bears it. Once again it is God who produces the fruit we are the display stand.

I was finishing Revelation in my daily reading and read of the tree of life (Rev 22:2). It will bear 12 different fruits one for each month. No fruit bearing plant does that, here. That tree will straddle the river of life that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb.  God’s doing in his place of habitation. No, fruit here and now is born in its season.

I wrestle with being successful, feeling successful. The problem is I measure like this world measures while I try to do things of the Spirit. The key is “I try.” To be successful we have to try harder. I have forgotten the words of Jesus to abide in him (faithfulness) and not try.  My daily reading shifted to the Psalms. This is what God said Psalm 1:1-3 HCSB:

¹How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked or take the path of sinners or join a group of mockers!
² Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.
³ He is like a tree planted beside streams of water that bears its fruit in season.        

There is a season for fruit. You and I may indeed be successful because of our faithfulness it is just not the fruit season! Maybe what we need to hear is People: God has not called us to be successful. He has called us to be faithful.

In His Service and Yours,

BroG