V a l o r L e a d e r B l o g

The Fruit of Discipleship

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask what­ever you wish, and it will be given you.  This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, show­ing your­self to be my dis­ci­ples” john 15:7–8; ital­ics added)

This pas­sage reveals the upward view of dis­ci­ple­ship.  A fruit­less dis­ci­ple­ship of Christ is not the way Christ laid out for His fol­low­ers.  If there is no real fruit in our lives, we can­not claim to be true disciples.

The fruit that the Lord spoke of results in a changed life and is pri­mar­ily man­i­fested in one of these two ways:

Fruit in Char­ac­ter—in the inward life.  “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kind­ness, good­ness, faith­ful­ness, gen­tle­ness and self-control” (Gala­tians 5:22–23)

The fruit of the Spirit’s work­ing in our lives is expressed through these nine qual­i­ties.  A tree is known by its fruit, as Jesus tells his dis­ci­ples.  The dis­ci­ple is rec­og­nized by his like­ness to Christ in inward char­ac­ter.  It was to this end that Paul toiled.  “I seek the fruit that increases to your credit” (Philip­pi­ans 4:17).

Fruit in Ser­vice—in out­ward min­istry.  “Open your eyes and look at the fields!  They are ripe for har­vest.  Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he har­vests the crop of eter­nal life, so that sower and reaper may be glad together” (John 4:35–36).  Fruit is seen when souls are won for Christ and through dis­ci­ple­ship lead on to spir­i­tual matu­rity and a life changed.

The fruit-bearing that is an authen­tic mark of dis­ci­ple­ship is not auto­matic but con­di­tional.  Jesus made this clear when He said, “I tell you the truth, unless a ker­nel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a sin­gle seed.  But if it dies, it pro­duces many seeds” (john 12:24).  He thus links fruit-bearing with the cross.  And did He not exem­plify this prin­ci­ple in His own death?  A sin­gle ker­nel of wheat fell into the ground at Cal­vary and died, but on the Day of Pen­te­cost it pro­duced three thou­sand ker­nels, and fruitage has resulted ever since.

The oper­a­tive words in the state­ment in John 12 are “unless” and “if.”  The glo­ri­ous pos­si­bil­ity of “much fruit” lies in our own hands.  “It is enough for the stu­dent to be like his teacher, and the ser­vant like his mas­ter” (Matthew 10:25).  As we apply the cross to our lives and die to our self-dominated life, the Spirit can make our lives fruit­ful and our lives are changed as a result of our per­sonal rela­tion­ship with the Lord.

Father work in our hearts to change what holds us back.  Renew a stead­fast spirit, ripe with fruits of the Spirit and out­wardly to reap a bounty of fruit for Your glory

Spir­i­tual Dis­ci­ple­ship — J.O.S