Living a Productive Life

Little Johnny once said, if you are good, you will be assigned all the work. If you are really good, you will get out of it.

Have you ever defined what you would consider a productive life? Do you understand what it means to be a fruitful Christian?

The word fruit is mentioned 66 times in the New Testament. The bible speaks about spiritual fruit, the different kinds of fruit and biological fruit. God’s definition of a productive life should encompass living a life in the spirit.

John 15:16 ¹⁶ You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

My first point today, if we want to be fruitful, we must cultivate some roots. We must be firmly planted in God!  Jeremiah 17:7-8 says (NASB) ⁷ “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord And whose trust is the Lord. ⁸ “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.

If you don’t have good roots, you simply won’t bear fruit. If you want to make it through tough times, times of heat and drought we need to be firmly rooted! Roots in Christ are the life-line of spiritual nourishment for us!

Proverbs 12:3 …the righteous cannot be uprooted! God’s people who are firmly rooted can stand the heat in times of drought and hardship, because their trust is in the Lord!

We all go thru dry spells in our lives. It is important to have roots in Christ if you are going to make it through a dry spell. These roots will enable you to withstand the heat of pressure in trying times.

Colossians 2:6-7 ⁶ So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

My second point for living a productive life; eliminate the weeds in your life. Weeds choke the life out of plants and don’t allow plants to ripen and produce fruit. We as believers have to eliminate the weeds that come in the form of people, worries and other interest that take our time, energy and attention from God! Weeds of worry, pleasure chasing, riches, negative people can dominate your attention and life. When the beach becomes more important than the bible, your priorities are out of balance.

Weeds are a sign of neglect. When you neglect bible reading, prayer and fellowship with other Christians, weeds will grow up and choke your spiritual life, preventing you from bearing fruit. So if you’re going to bear fruit, you have to deepen your roots and eliminate the weeds in your life.

Finally, if you want a productive life in God, you have to allow him to prune you!

John 15:1-2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.

Pruning involves the dead branches and cutting back the living ones both to shape the tree or vine to stimulate growth. Most of us think that when God prunes us, he cuts off the sinful, superficial dead stuff in our lives. Well he does, but he also cuts off stuff that is alive and successful for greater fruitfulness. God cuts off some of the “good” in order to make us healthier. God is glorified when we bear “much” fruit! Don’t confuse pruning with punishment, God is doing this to someone who has potential for greatness to someone he wants to use in a mighty powerful significant way! God will use people, problems and pressures to prune you! People will criticize you and challenge you. They will question and doubt you. They will challenge your motives, but it is important that we recognize that it is part of God’s process to make us better; it is God’s process that at the end will produce a harvest of righteousness and peace for His glory.

Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Pruning is never fun, but it’s for our future benefit and very best for our lives!

Growth takes time! God want us to wait for the harvest. It takes two days for mushrooms to sprout and sixty years for an oak tree to grow and mature. Do you want to be a mushroom or an oak tree? I encourage you to die to yourself so God can produce spiritual growth in you. Stay with God during the process, keep in contact with Him, depend on him, live for him, trust him, work for him and never ever give up!