Fruitful Christians
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Autumn is the season of fruit harvests, when the orchards have "paid their dividends," and the music of ripe apples is heard as they go rattling into their bins. The wormy and the worthless fruit has been thrown to the swine; only the sound fruit is accounted fit for the market. Every Christian church is an orchard, and every tree in that orchard is "known by its fruits." Too many there are who try to pass for Christians; but from them the yield of genuine graces can no more be expected than the owner of a grove of pine trees, would expect a crop of Bartlett pears.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit—as the apostle catalogues them—are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, and temperance. The first essential to a fruitful Christian—is that he be well-rooted. No part of a tree is so invisible—and yet so important as its roots. The condition of a tree commonly manifests where its roots are and what they are doing. A dearth of life below ground means barrenness above ground.
The roots of our religious life—are our secret motives and our ruling affections; and no one can claim to be a genuine Christian unless Jesus Christ dwells down in the core of his heart. When we are shocked to discover the loose living and spiritual barrenness of some church members—it is because the branches of their profession hang over on the church side of the wall—while their roots are in the sandy soil of worldliness on the other side. There is no heart-union to Christ; and he has declared, "Unless you abide in me—you can bear no fruit." A godly life is not the result of a happy accident. Grapes do not grow on thorn bushes, nor are figs gathered from thistles. Multitudes of people expect at some day to become Christians, and often wish that they were Christians—and yet they do not apply the common-sense principle of causes and results.
To be a Christian signifies that one has the divine "root of the matter" in him—that he has a character which grows out of faith in the crucified Christ, and proves itself genuine by obedience to Christ's commandments. Such a character is not a matter of divine decree, or of human haphazard, any more than wheat grows without planting, or that grapevines spring up spontaneously in our gardens.
Christian character is a growth—first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full, ripe corn in the ear. There can be no vigorous growth, without a deep rooting into Jesus Christ. Shallow conversions produce shallow Christians. Some Christians are bountiful fruitbearers, and the reason is that they draw all their supplies of grace and all their inspiration of daily conduct from their deep down heart-union to Jesus. Love of Jesus is the only motive which subdues selfishness. Loyalty to Jesus holds them as a stout root holds a tree amid the blasts of winter's tempests, or under the summer's parching droughts.
Glorious old Paul was always abounding in the work of the Lord, and he tells the secret of it when he said, "Christ lives in me." A drought never affects a well-rooted Christian whose soul is in constant connection with the fountain-head of all spiritual power.
There is too much periodical piety in our churches. Some brethren are only flourishing during seasons of "revival." The rest of the time they have a very dingy look; their leaves get so powdered over with the dust of worldliness that they are very unsightly objects. There are some others whose leaf turns yellow very soon after they are planted in the church. This betrays a lack of moisture at the root, or perhaps a secret worm of indulged sin that is devouring the life of the tree.
It is a wretched mistake to deal with the externals—while the condition of the heart is neglected. If the heart is rooted by the "rivers of water" the leaf will be always green, and the fruit abundant. Such a disciple never ceases to yield fruit. Every year is a fruit-bearing year.
It is the fixed habit of this faithful brother to attend the place of prayer in all weathers, to give according to his means, to pay everyone his dues, to share his loaf with the suffering, to give his vote as conscience demands, and to stand up for Jesus Christ everywhere and on all occasions. He is always abounding in the work of the Master. This is the sort of Christian, who glorifies his Father in heaven by "bearing much fruit." The word "much" here is comparative. What would be much for a peasant, would be paltry for a millionaire.
A certain city church, may plume itself on contributing fifty thousand dollars a year to foreign missions; but who in that churchpinches himself or herself to do it? We could match against them, a poor widow who at the end of a day of drudgery, trudges two miles on foot to her prayer-meeting, saving her car-fare for the missionary box; truly her gift outshines them all. The Master weighs gifts and labor in the scale of self-denial. Barnabas heads the column in the apostolic church; he gives his real estate to the Lord, he goes as a city missionary to Antioch and a foreign missionary to Cyprus, and wins the lofty title, "full of the Holy Spirit."
"Much fruit" means the giving to Christ the best we have. It is the lading of every limb on life's tree—be it a giant or a dwarf. He who in the lowliest sphere walks according to the Scripture rule, employs his time and single talent, controls his words, regulates his conduct and does his work in such a conscientious way as to make his religion legible and luminous to all around him—such a man is a bountiful fruit-bearer.
In the Isle of Wight dwelt a poor "Dairyman's Daughter" and a "Little Jane, the Young Cottager," whose precious clusters of choice grapes of grace have sent out a sweet fragrance over Christendom. They "did what they could." Luther, the prince of reformers, Wesley, the prince of church organizers, Livingstone, the prince of missionaries, shook down their fruits over many lands—yet in God's sight they won no higher honor than the two cottage maidens. One of the most magnificent bearers, who "yielded fruit every month" for forty years, was transplanted last winter from the soil of Boston to the soil of heaven.
Living to Jesus Christ every day and in the minutest things of life—is the secret of fruitfulness. A fruitful Christian is a growth—not a sudden creation. A noble Christly character cannot be gained by a religion of Sundays and sacraments and special services; it is the product of many days of sunshine and storm, of drawing in the vital sap from Jesus as the living Head, of conflict and prayer and self-denials, and down-pourings of the Holy Spirit.
The religion which would rather be poor than touch a dishonest dollar, which would rather go through a Sunday's fierce storm to its mission school than lie on its lounge; a religion that in all things serves Christ for the sheer love of serving him—this is the kind of spiritual growth whose fruits taste of the divine life within it. Blessed is that Christian whose broad boughs are laden with "apples of gold" for God's "baskets of silver". Such blessedness is within the reach of everyone who reads this book; as you lay it down, ask yourself, "Am I bearing the genuine fruits of the Holy Spirit?"
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