After last week’s post about abiding in Jesus (like a flowing river or a fruitful vine) I want to look at what hinders our fruitfulness for Christ. Jesus so wants us to be fruitful, that he may take away things we think we need to be comfortable. While he wants us to experience peace of heart in him, he may shake up our lives and remove anything that hinders our relationship with him. He will send whatever we need to refine us too. Please join me in this week’s post about the Lord’s pruning of anything that hinders our ability to abide in him and bear fruit for Him.
Before we look at hindrances to fruitfulness, let’s review Galatians 5:22-23, which lists fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We use these fruits to glorify God and serve people. As a result, God will remove anything that hinders our ability to access and use these qualities. Thankfully, the first hindrance God limits is Satan himself, since John 10:10 says, “The thief’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy,” and Jesus reassures us, “I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33) and 1 John 3:8 says, “For the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.” Satan would like to hinder us from enjoying the fruits of the Spirit and using them to glorify God and serve others. When we rely on Christ, we can remember that Jesus has overcome Satan. Now we just need to call on Jesus when Satan tries to trick us into obeying him, rather than the Lord.
We need to be careful about other people who can hinder the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. For example, Paul said in Romans 16:17b-18 “Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people’s faith by teaching things contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not serving Christ our Lord; they are serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words they deceive innocent people.” Nonbelievers and fake Christians can harm our Christian faith and inhibit the fruit of the Spirit, but even fellow believers can hinder our fruit if we let them control us. Believers may not intend to control us, but if we are people-pleasers, we may try to please other people instead of pleasing the Lord. Remember Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man is a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” When we try to please others instead of the Lord, we will not bear fruit. Finally, other believers can hinder our fruit if they are misguided and try to get us to do things God has not called us to do, even good things.
But there is an especially sneaky enemy of the fruits of the Spirit. That enemy lives inside each of us: the carnal, rebellious flesh, also called our sin nature. Matt. 26:41 says, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The flesh does not want to submit to God’s pruning. The flesh wants to go to bed late or get up late, eat too much food, eat the wrong kinds of food, spend too much money, yell at others, refuse to help others, criticize others, not share the Gospel, not read our Bible or pray, and the list of bad actions goes on. These behaviors must be pruned out of our lives so we do not feed our sin nature. Gals.5:16 says, “Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh,” and Romans 8:13b says, “If you, by the Spirit, do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.” We have to pursue the Holy Spirit and really listen to him, so we do not give in to our sinful (fleshly, carnal) nature.
But even good things and actions may need to be removed from our lives too. In John 15: 2, Jesus says, “He cuts off every branch in me that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” There may be good things that keep us from doing the best things. Use my life for example. Unlike people who need very little sleep, I need more sleep than the average person (about an extra hour), so I do not have plenty of time to spare. While those short sleepers could watch TV and still get plenty of work done, I cannot. So for me, TV viewing is something that I had to prune out of my life. The only exception is once per week for my daughter Amy. She asked me to do this once per week, so I will watch one show, while cuddled up with her, for about 45 minutes each week. But otherwise, this is an indulgence the Lord has not permitted in my life. Yet this is fine for many other people, because they need less sleep than I do. In your own life, you may find some “good” things take you away from the best things God has called you to do. In those cases, you must listen to the Spirit’s urgings and cut back on those activities or even give them up, depending on what the Spirit guides you to do.
Some people will say this is unfair of the Lord to take anything from us (prune us) but we must remember he does this so we bear more fruit for him. And while some may say this is still unfair, since the fruit we bear is for the Lord, we must remember that fruit benefits us! Look at all the good things we develop when we bear fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These may be for the Lord, but every one of those fruits brings us joy too. Anything we sincerely do for the Lord actually benefits us too. Our rebellion hurts us, and causes us to not bear fruit.
I pray we have blessed you with this week’s brief post. Please let me know how God is enabling you to bear fruit for him too. I love to hear from you, my readers. Thanks for joining us this week.