Seasons of Fruitfulness

In my devotion time this week I read a good devotion by Chris Tiegreen called “Seasons of Fruitfulness”. It was a good read and spoke to my heart. I thought I would share it with you!

 

“Seasons of Fruitfulness”

“The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”  Matthew 13:23

No Christian is fruitful all the time. There are silent years of Paul, Peter – even Jesus – about which we know nothing, years of pruning or preparation before a time of abundance. This is the scriptural pattern of God’s work in our lives as laid out in Psalms 1: “He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season.”  So we must not worry in our latent times.

On the other side of this coin is that every Christian is fruitful some of the time if the enemies of the seed are dealt with properly. A persistent and consistent lack of fruit should prompt a believer to ask these questions: What is hindering God’s fruitfulness in my life? Is there anything I’m tolerating that stands in the way of God’s full work in me?

Jesus’ parable of the sower in Mathew 13 (also Mark 4 and Luke 8) indicates three categories of enemies to the sower’s work: the evil one (v. 19) trouble and persecution (v. 21) and the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth (v. 22). The Christian who does not actively stand firm in the opposition to any of these will bear the consequences of fruitlessness and miss out on the joy of God’s bounty.

Do you struggle with a discrepancy between the portrayal of the Christian life in Scripture – abundant life and rivers of living water – and your actual experience? You may be in a preparation phase, or there may be a hindrance. How can you know?

Fruitless periods in a Christian’s life call for discernment – a quality often lacking in such times. But God promises wisdom to those who ask. If we seek His guidance and prepare to accept whatever He might say, He will show us what hinders His work in our lives.

A.W. Tozer wrote – “Work designed for eternity can only be done by the eternal Spirit.”

Butch Stuckert
Elder