Knowingly or unknowingly, in all walks of our lives we desire to bear good fruits. Be it in our workplaces, relationships, communities, we strive to bring forth a positive vibe around us.
However, recent situations around us show a stark contrast. People exhibit hatred instead of love, unforgiveness instead of forgiveness, hostility and retaliation instead of kindness and compassion. Where are we heading to? People are turning against each other and discriminating on the basis of race, color and ethnicity. The articles which sought my attention in the past couple of days brought a deep-burden and a sense of disappointment within me. It is heart-breaking to see what’s happening around us.
From the spiritual perspective, God wants us to bear fruit so that we may be of good use to Him who created us for a special purpose and to those around us. In Matt 21:18-19, “In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.”
we see early in the morning when Jesus was hungry, he noticed a fig tree by the roadside. He went up to it and found nothing except leaves. Jesus cursed the tree that didn’t bear any fruit.
The world today is hungry - craving for joy, peace, hope and restoration. God has placed all of us in this world so that we could bear good fruits which would satisfy the needy and hungry souls - giving hope to the hopeless, peace to those in anxiety and spreading love and hope into the lives of those who have lost it all. Galatians 5:22-23 says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
Instead, if we possess evil fruits such as envy, rage, malice and hatred - remember what happened to the fig tree - it withered! We all struggle with evil and sin. Romans 7:15-20 tells us “ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”
Here, we see that although we long to do good, when sin starts to reign in us, we end up doing what we hate to do. Although we have the desire to do good, we cannot carry it out. That’s what is happening to this world - people are giving control to sin and the world is being defiled through it. People are turning to be self-centered and selfish with evil motives.
As it is written in James 4:7 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Yes, we haven’t lost complete control. Pick up the reins which we had left loose, keep your boundaries strong. We can flee from doing evil and bear good fruits. Jesus shares a commandment with us in Mark 12:30 - 31 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Let us take these words to our hearts and be doers of it by loving and respecting one another, being full of compassion and slow to anger. If we all practice this, the world around us will undergo a complete transformation.
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