Does what you do — or don’t do — really matter?

If you don’t believe that God has any expectations of you, then you may believe what you do, or don’t do, doesn’t really matter much.

So then, does God have any expectations of you as a follower of Jesus?

Yes.

For example, He expects you to live a fruitful life:

“You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name,” John 15:16.

Jesus did not come just to be our Savior, but to be our Lord as well. As Lord, or Master of our lives, He has appointed us to live lives that are fruitful for His kingdom and glory. So what we do, or don’t do, matters. Kind of like a story told by Stephen Kingsley about a preacher and what he did, or didn’t do, with his garden …

As the pastor of two churches I’ve always wanted to have a garden, but somehow most springs I do not find the time to till the soil and get one planted, so out in back of the parsonage is a plot of ground of wonderfully fertile soil, which is growing nothing but a nice crop of weeds.

I used this garden to teach my son an important lesson. The conversation went something like this. “Son, is my garden growing a crop?”

“No Dad, nothing got planted in the garden again this year.”

“You’re right, but look again. Is the garden growing anything?”

“Well, yes,” came the reply, “It is growing weeds.”

“Exactly!” I said, “And, if good things are not intentionally planted in your life, by nature, you too will only grow a nice crop of weeds.”

In order for us to live the kind of fruitful lives for which we have been appointed to live, we must:

Remain in, and rely on, Jesus Christ. “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing,” John 15:4-5.

Endure pruning to be increasingly fruitful. “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more,” John 15:1-2.

How is what you are doing, or not doing, with your life now producing lasting fruit for the glory of God and His kingdom? How do you draw from and rely on Jesus to be able to live a fruitful life? How are you allowing God to prune your life so you can be even more fruitful?

Scotty