To bear abiding fruit

Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. (John 15:16)

God the Father is seeking fruit.

Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. (James 5:7)

So important to God is the fruit He is seeking that He will cut out of the Vine, out of Christ, any branch that does not bear fruit.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:.... (John 15:2)

The fruit is Christ. Christ has been sown in us and God is expecting to reap Christ in us. No other fruit can stand in God’s Presence.

Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary. Then He was raised from the dead by the Glory of the Father. Now Christ is being multiplied. Christ is being multiplied to the extent of filling the creation of God. This filling takes place through the saints.

When we first come to Christ we are flesh-and-blood creatures. Then God plants Christ in us. Now there are two lives struggling for existence in us: our human life, and the Divine Life of Christ.

If we live in the flesh the Divine Life will be choked out, as we learn from the parable of the sower (Matthew 13: 22). If we allow the Holy Spirit to press our human life into the death of the cross, the Life of Christ will be multiplied in our personality. Soon the Father begins to behold the Nature of His Son in us. This is the fruit for which God is looking.

Traditionally the churches are filled with good works of all kinds. The members hope by these to please God, while in the meantime the members of the churches seek to preserve their life in the flesh. The fruit that God desires proceeds from our death, not from our active soulish life.

As far as God is concerned, the first creation is finished. There is nothing of it, good or evil, that God desires. All of it was condemned on the cross of Calvary.

Now there is a new creation. Christ is the beginning of the new creation. As Christ is formed in us the new creation multiplies. It is the new creation that inherits the Kingdom of God, the first creation serving only as a framework of support while the Lord God brings the new into being.

The Life of Christ is fertile. As Christ is formed in us He is conceived in those to whom we minister, and so on and on until the creation of God is filled with the image and Life of Christ.

He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. (Isaiah 27:6)

When our fruit remains, and Christ is established in us and in those around us, whatever we ask the Father in Jesus’ name He gives us. To this end we were chosen and ordained by the Lord—that we might bear the eternal fruit of righteous, holy, obedient behavior, the Life and image of Christ.

When we keep on interjecting our fleshly, soulish will into what we are and do, the Life of Christ is pushed to one side. No permanent fruit is borne in us or in those to whom we are attempting to minister. We then are in danger of being cut off as a branch, although we may be saved as by fire (John 15:6, I Corinthians 3:15). We are not serving our intended purpose in the plan of God.

It appears likely that our fruit-bearing will gather momentum after we die. This certainly has been true of Abraham and of the Apostle Paul. The Divine Life that issued through Abraham and Paul has continued to bear fruit throughout the centuries. We can bear a hundredfold or sixtyfold or thirtyfold depending on how willing we are to be pruned.

God has called us to exceedingly great fruit-bearing, perhaps on a scale with that of Abraham. We are pioneers, coming on the scene at the beginning of the construction of the Kingdom of God. All eternity lies before us. No doubt we shall populate new worlds with the image of Christ, although how that will be we do not know as yet.

The amount of fruit we bear depends on the extent to which we are willing to die during this present life. If we cling to our human life we will die in barrenness, even though we appear to have been fruitful in the Kingdom of God. If we are willing to die to our human life, giving place to the new Life of Christ that is in us, our fruit will remain. When the Lord returns, our fruitfulness and dominion will be extraordinary on the face of the earth.

In the Kingdom of God, the barren rejoice with a multitude of children while the children of the married wife are as nothing by comparison (Isaiah, Chapter 54). This follows the experience of Sarah. Those who are busy in church work may produce an abundance of accomplishments. Those who wait on the Lord may spend many years in hope and trust with little apparent success. When the "death" of the barren has been completed to God’s satisfaction, much fruit is borne.

Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom, toward the ways of the world. Lot fathered two daughters without difficulty. Later, Moab and Ammon were born. God never required that Lot offer up any of his children as an offering to the Lord.

Abraham waited for the promise of God and was without children for many years. When Abraham finally did have a son he was required to give back his son to the Lord. (How precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints!) Abraham has become the father, and Sarah the mother, of all who believe in Christ.

Unless we are willing to "fall into the ground and die" we shall be barren in the Kingdom of God. If we are willing to die in Christ we will bring much fruit. To die in Christ is to give one’s desires, ambitions, and plans to the Lord, trusting in Him to take care of all our needs and hopes. Such a death is not without pain but it is the only path to lasting fruitfulness in the Kingdom of God.

The Christians who evade the cross in this life will experience neither fruitfulness nor dominion when the Lord appears. The fruit of those who die in Christ will abide for eternity. It will be our joy to be with people whose characters were formed in part by the Virtue of Christ that came to them out of our death. Also, we may have the pleasure of ministering to those who still have need of us, as the Lord directs.

The Christians of our day are hoping to go to live in a mansion in Heaven. Such do not understand their own heart. The truest joy is that of working with people. We do not come to this understanding until we die in Christ and the love of Christ is formed in us.

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