Fruits of Light
The picture above is of the lemon tree in my garden. When I planted this tree about 10 years ago, it was a stick tree with a stem with a 2cm diameter. When I saw the fruit on it recently, I could not but be in awe of our Father’s creation. This tree is doing all it was created to do. It is growing, providing shade, flowers, and fruits all in it’s specific season. This lemon tree is praising and worshipping our Father, by bearing the fruit He has ordained it to do at the beginning of His creation.
Psalms 148: 7-9 and 13(NKJV) states: Praise the Lord from the earth, You great sea creatures and all the depths; Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, fulfilling His word; Mountains and all hills;
Fruitful trees and all cedars……..Let them praise the name of the Lord, For His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and heaven.
What tremendous lesson this tree holds for all of us. This tree has nobody telling it what to do, it is acting on it’s innate design as given by God. According to the covenant God has with us, we have this within us as well, we have His laws written upon our hearts and the Holy Spirit within in us to guide, comfort, and protect us.
And all this talk about fruit and the covenant brings me back to the Jewish celebrations of Shavout, the celebration of the first fruits. It is the time when they received the Torah at mount Sinai, the time of the wheat harvest and also the start of the ripening of the first fruits of the harvest. Therefore it is a time of spending time in the Word, of acknowledging God for who He is as the Saviour who rescued them from Egypt, He gave them terms of His covenant through the commandments and provided them all they needed in season, wheat, milk and the fruits of the the promised land. What does all of this mean to us as followers of Yeshua?
Fruit created through Light
When we look at the pattern we see the following:
- Jesus redeemed us through His death and resurrection on the cross. This relates to coming out of Egypt. He became the first fruit amongs the dead, the one who rose from the dead, the one who lived after death.
- God gave the Jewish people the 10 commandments, the terms of His covenant, but to us He gave the promise of Jeremiah 31: 31 – 34: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah – not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
- Finally, because Jesus died and was raised from the dead and went to sit at the right hand of His and our Father, He gave us not only the Word on our hearts, but also the Holy Spirit of God through which we are able to grow according to the Word and produce fruit acceptable to Father.
It would mean that we need to be sure that, with the Help of the Holy Spirit, the Word is in our hearts, in our minds and in our day to day actions. It would mean that we not only go to our Father to ask to be saved and provided for, but that we will also go to Him with our worship, with thanksgiving and praise. You might wonder what this means, because, we all worship in church, our small groups or wherever the bride gathers. However, there is more to worship than singing and dancing. Their is the type of worship that we see in the lemon tree above and in all the wonders of creation. The worship where we come to our Father and God with the fruits we bare.
Our fruits should be that which is created by the Word through the Holy Spirit of God. Our fruit should included loving our God by living out His will for us with all our being, with every cell in our bodies. It should include how we love our neighbours, with kindness, patience, acting fairly, not coveting who they are and what they have. Finally our fruit should be seen in how we love ourselves – are you patient with yourself, do you accept yourself as a marvel of Father’s creation or are you unhappy with who He made you. Are you taking care of yourself as a temple of the most High God?
My prayer for myself and all who reads this today, is that:
- we will praise God with our whole beings,
- we will bear fruit according to the unique design that He placed within each one of us,
- we will honour Him not only by obey His words, but by bearing fruit which is a visible testimony of Him living in and through us.
I pray what we will worship Him as living sacrifices as Jesus did! If you are starting to stress about how you will do this, don’t. For in His Word he answers as follows throught Zecahariah 4: 6 NKJV: “…….This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel:
‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ Says the Lord of hosts.
For a tree is known by it’s fruit
“For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Luke 6: 43 – 45 NKJV.
The fruit that Jesus, our example, bore, was life and life in abundance, whilst He was walking on earth and after His death and resurrection. He came to release us from the curse of death, so that we could become part of the blessing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through our faith in Him.
Look at lemon tree above and the others trees around you and how they worship God, effortlessly. BECOME the tree you were meant to be, by surrendering to His will for your life, and growing through the obeying the Word which is written on your heart and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Let’s become like Jesus and the rest of creation, let’s worship Him with all we have and all we are, whilst giving all the glory to our Father.
