To Encourage You

John 15:16 “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”

Do you want your life to count for something?  Do you want to leave a legacy?  Most people do, I think. For example, have you ever noticed how it seems every president writes his memoirs after he leaves office?  It’s an attempt by “the leader of the free world” to leave for posterity his view of what he’s done during his term in office that should be remembered.  But will it be?  Will it matter when it’s all said and done?  Similarly, will your life and my life matter in the end? Should we be writing our memoirs, lest when we’re gone, others forget that we were even here?  Is it all up to us to leave a good impression of ourselves for others, or is there a better way? 

Well, in the verse above we have the words of Jesus as he speaks to His disciples about “fruit” that will “abide,” i.e., things produced by their lives that will last. He likens it to a tree that has an ultimate purpose of producing fruit.  I recall the account that is recorded in Matthew 21 of Jesus’ encounter with a fig tree.  Because He is the Creator of all things, we know that this fig tree, like each one of us, was created by Him. The account goes like this: “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.” What a strange account, but it’s a story given to us for a reason.  Similarly, there’s a parable Jesus taught about another fruitless tree. It appears in Luke 13 and goes like this: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”  In both of these accounts we see that the ultimate purpose for these trees was to bear fruit. However, if they did not, they were to be destroyed, and rendered fruitless from that time on. 

Similarly, in John 15, Jesus likens people to branches on a grapevine, where He is the vine and His Father is the vinedresser.  He puts it this way: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit . . . Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. . . You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide . . .” 

In all of these accounts, Jesus is likening people to trees or vines whose intended purpose is to bear fruit.  He’s pointing to a life that counts and counts for all eternity.  Everything we do in this life will either count for all eternity, i.e., produce eternal fruit, or it will be burned up and perish.  An example is how we use our money. We can use it for the primary purpose of blessing ourselves, or we can use it to the glory of God. Jesus talked about it in this way in Matthew 6:19-21: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The same can be said for our “treasures” of time, work, talents, places of authority, or anything else that it has been our privilege to possess or do in this life.  All of these things, all of which have been given to us by God, are meant for the purpose of bearing fruit to His glory. If our lives do not bear fruit in this way, in the end, all that we’ve accumulated, all that we are, and all that we’ve done, will be lost, wasted, burned up for all eternity.  Conversely, everything that our life has produced for the glory of God will not be lost.  It will endure forever. 

So again, are you living a life that counts?  Are you leaving a legacy that will endure the ravages of time?  It’s all summed up pretty well in the words of Jim Elliot, the missionary who gave his life as a martyr in his attempt to share the gospel with the Auca Indians of South America: “He is no fool that gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Does that describe your life?  Eternity, alone, will reveal the answer.