New King James Version (NKJV)
The Parable of the Growing Seed
26 And He said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, 27 and should sleep by night and rise by day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he himself does not know how. 28 For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head. 29 But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Fruitfulness is a Command. Since the beginning, God has always applied the pressure on us to bear fruit. Gen. 1: 28 - 'Be fruitful and multiply...'
In order for you and I to be fruitful and develop into the child of God He wants us to be; first of all, we must understand the full scope of what it means to be fruitful. As a disciple, I was raised in an environment that displayed fruitfulness as a dynamic related to soul winning. While this may have some truth in it, that is not all that fruitfulness is...in it's base definition, it simply means to 'Produce'
This can be seen in soul-winning, but it's also seen in marriage, child-bearing, money making, etc. There's a reason why Jesus has examples of fruitfulness or the lack thereof throughout the bible; He's commanding us to rise up and bear fruit.
Matthew 3:8New King James Version (NKJV)
8 Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,
John the Baptist was challenging the religious people of his day telling them that God is not impressed by their rituals and traditions, He's looking for the fruit of repentance in their lives! He's looking for this same fruit in our lives. Ask yourself, what are you producing for God? Believe it or not, we're producing something - be it good or bad; worthy or unworthy...
Now, concerning fruitfulness, there are a few things I would like to point out in the text above...first, it says that in order for this farmer to be fruitful, he must scatter seed. God will do something, once we do something. Secondly, he calls this fruitfulness a mystery for he does not know how it's done...but the Word tells us that the earth yields the crop...in other words, the developing of a soul is God's business, not ours...God said that He will build the church, we simply need to get them there and make disciples.
I love the personal discipline found in this scripture - it says that the man would sleep by night and rise by day...it's night time...GO TO BED! So many Christians are bound with Night Fever, and usually end up doing something their going to regret...it also attacks laziness...it tells us the man RISES BY DAY > YES, GET UP OUT OF THE BED AND GO PRODUCE SOMETHING!!
We cannot complain about our present circumstances, if we refuse to do anything about it. The call should always be, 'I must bear fruit!'
