There are a couple of passages which use the method of what I like to call “spiritual construction” or building blocks. The first is found in Romans 5:3-5 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
We see here that each principle grows out of the one before it. Suffering is the fertilizer, perseverance the cultivation and character the plant, which then produces hope. Hope is a fruit of all the other work put into our spiritual walk.
Many try to produce the fruits of the Spirit without the experience necessary to grow them. Look, what do we use on plants to get them to grow? Water, soil and fertilizer. And what is fertilizer? Doo Doo. So the best and quickest and surest way of growing a good tree is to throw doo doo on its roots.
Jesus told a parable about a tree which wouldn’t produce any fruit. It had the leaves, the branches and all that made it a tree but no fruit, which made it useless to the owner of the orchard. So he said to the manager of the orchard, ” ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
” ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ “ Luke 13: 7-9.
Jesus whole point centers around the purpose of a tree. The Jewish nation at that time wasn’t bearing any fruit, although they looked good on the outside by being extremely religious. O, they converted heathens to their cause, but Jesus claimed they made these converts into worse religious nutcases than they themselves were.
Digging around a tree requires breaking up the soil, which is sort of a violent act. The digging up of our roots many times requires upheaval and the breaking up of our comfort zones or we won’t change our habits. But digging up the soil is the only sure way to get the fertilizer into the roots where it will do the most good. A tree must reproduce or it becomes completely useless except to be pretty and God didn’t make trees to be just be pretty for they bear fruit in order to produce seeds, which then can be planted to grow new trees. A tree which grows outside of this order of things, God calls useless and one which must be cut down.
In the Christian world there are many who grow no fruit at all, even of a personal nature. They grow into fine looking Christians with all the trimmings and showy displays of spiritual success, but they share none of it and benefit no one but themselves. O, they might be shade from the heat of the day for one who is burning up from it, but other than this one service (which is completely accidental), they give nothing else. God requires more of us.
We are to produce the fruit of righteousness, peace, and love, etc. For us to rest before the race has been run is like trying to harvest apples before planting an orchard.
Yet the lesson here in Luke is poignant and succinctly pointed: For those not producing fruit, God will dig up around the roots, force fertilizer in there and wait for a while to see what happens. In other words, we will get plenty of feces in our lives, which stinks it up for a while, but the plan is to help us bear fruit. And we can expect to sit in shit for at least a season.
Paul, in our original text, tells us suffering produces perseverance which then produces character. God digs around our tree to shake up our root system, throws some really nasty smelling circumstances or situations in the mix then leaves us to sit in it for time. The results are up to us. We can either endure these nasty smelling situations with grace and perseverance, or we can rot at the roots. One way or another something has to happen. If we produce fruit, we remain in our place. If we don’t produce anything but a continued odor, another tree will take our place. A tree that’s already bearing fruit doesn’t need a lot of fertilizer to make it grow, at least not the kind God had to use in the parable.
Suffering is the fertilizer, perseverance our waiting period, character and hope the fruit of God’s effort. The only way, however, this will produce anything positive in us at all is if we submit to the efforts of our Master.
After all, since He made the tree, wouldn’t He know how best to grow them?
Tags: bearing fruit, building godliness, character, Christian growth, fruits of the Spirit, growing up, hope, suffering
