“…that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God…” Colossians 1:10
Shriveled Fruit
Over the weekend, my eyes caught sight of some apple branches that had been cut off a month or so ago. They were lying on the ground where they fell, with small red apples still clinging to them. The fruit had begun to shrivel but was still colorful and, if you didn’t look too closely, still tasty. I picked up those dead limbs gingerly because the leaves had fallen off and the twigs were prickly.
If you were to pass by on the road, you would have wondered why I was hauling away branches of bright red apples. You couldn’t tell from a distance that they were quite dead; you had to get up close to see the shriveled peels and bird-pecked flesh. No doubt worms had taken up residence on the insides, too.
Those apples extracted the last shred of life-giving nutrients and water from the branches after they were cut, but eventually there was nothing left to feed on, and they lost their fullness. They weren’t good for anything except to fuel the burn pile, which is where I dragged them.
The life parallels to our own spiritual fruit-bearing are astounding. If we are cut off from our supply of nutrients and living water, we will not only eventually die but, to state the obvious, we will not grow any more. It probably won’t be evident right away, even to ourselves, but we are deceived. It is physically and spiritually impossible to bear good fruit when the branch is severed from what the root supplies. If we do already have fruit produced by our former attachment, it will not live long. Upon close inspection, we will see that our fruit has shriveled—it is not as life-giving as it once was, not full and satisfying and sweet, and may even be full of worms, or destroyed by our enemy.
It’s good to inspect the fruit of our lives. Are we encouraging others? Loving them? Giving of ourselves as we once did? Praying for people? Are we still attached to the Branch, to the Root (do we still have an intimate relationship with Jesus)? Have we pruned ourselves out of the orchard (removed ourselves from regular fellowship)? Are we grasping at the last bit of nutrients available,with no fresh flow from the Lord, relying only on what we formerly had? Do we think others won’t notice our dryness because of our bright show of now-shriveled fruit? And who would benefit from partaking of it?
“Lord, may our fruit be fresh and full because of our continued attachment to You, our Branch and our Root. Feed us by Your Word. Warn us when we start to detach, and may we not be deceived by colorful, shiny things that are actually dead. We pray for Your glory to be evidenced in our lives. Amen.”
Amen.
Thank you! A good comparison of our lives.
Awesome analogy!!!
Right on!