A Weekend Of Distinguishing Fruit

We have dozens of blackberry bushes all over the property. They're all huge bushes, and the flowers that turn into blackberries have just begun to fall off, reveal the fruit inside.

But right now they're not blackberries - they're more like greenish berries. And they're nowhere near full sized - they're more like miniature, baby berries.

If I were to pick them now, they would taste horrible and not be worth the time and effort. Who wants a green berry when they're hoping for a blackberry anyway?

So I'll wait patiently for a little while longer, waiting for them to ripen and become all sweet and lovely.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bright forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciple. John 15:5-8

Paul tells us in Galatians what fruit we're to be producing and what fruit we're to be looking for in others: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. Abiding together with the Lord brings forth the most wonderful, glorious fruit of all. They'll be ripe and ready to use when we've drawn as close to Him as we can and are deciding which are good and which are simply rotten.

Make this a weekend of distinguishing fruit - not the berries on the bush, but the fruit that's ripen under the watchful eye of the Holy Spirit. Wait on the fruit that's not ready to pick yet, harvest the ripe fruit and purge any branches that aren't producing fruit in the way God wants.

That's how you'll show your total dependence on the Lord.

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