Believer, are you bearing fruit? Do you struggle to do so? Perhaps it is because you are attempting not to bear fruit, but to produce it.

Christian, never forget: the branch does not generate fruit - it bears it. Growth comes from the root. An olive branch does not produce olives, nor do the canes on a grapevine. While the fruit appears on these limbs, growth begins at the trunk, sourced from that which is firmly planted in the soil.

Likewise, apart from Christ, we cannot bear fruit. It is not from ourselves that the fruit grows, though it may be seen through us. It is our root, Jesus Christ, who produces fruit in us. This is why we are instructed to abide in Him and Him in us, because “the branch cannot bear fruit of itself” (Jn. 15:4).

Jesus was very clear on this, exhorting, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5). Read that again and let it sink in: apart from Him, we can do nothing.

So consider, if you do not see fruit in your life, are you abiding in Him? Or are we, like the Jews of Jesus’ time, giving Him lip service while our hearts are far from Him?

Dear brethren, let us take honest inventory of ourselves, and if we find we are not bearing fruit, ask the question: “Are we abiding in Him? Have we been crucified with Him so that it is no longer we who live but He who lives in us?” (Gal. 2:20)

Seek with all your heart to abide in Him, that you may rest in the assurance Jesus gives, that “if you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples” (Jn. 15:7-8).

——————
Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening Devotions

Morning, November 13

"The branch cannot bear fruit of itself." John 15:4

How did you begin to bear fruit? It was when you came to Jesus and cast yourselves on His great atonement, and rested on His finished righteousness. Ah! what fruit you had then! Do you remember those early days? Then indeed the vine flourished, the tender grape appeared, the pomegranates budded forth, and the beds of spices gave forth their smell. Have you declined since then? If you have, we charge you to remember that time of love, and repent, and do thy first works. Be most in those engagements which you have experimentally proved to draw you nearest to Christ, because it is from Him that all your fruits proceed. Any holy exercise which will bring you to Him will help you to bear fruit. The sun is, no doubt, a great worker in fruit-creating among the trees of the orchard: and Jesus is still more so among the trees of His garden of grace. When have you been the most fruitless? Has not it been when you have lived farthest from the Lord Jesus Christ, when you have slackened in prayer, when you have departed from the simplicity of your faith, when your graces have engrossed your attention instead of your Lord, when you have said, "My mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved"; and have forgotten where your strength dwells- has not it been then that your fruit has ceased? Some of us have been taught that we have nothing out of Christ, by terrible abasements of heart before the Lord; and when we have seen the utter barrenness and death of all creature power, we have cried in anguish, "From Him all my fruit must be found, for no fruit can ever come from me." We are taught, by past experience, that the more simply we depend upon the grace of God in Christ, and wait upon the Holy Spirit, the more we shall bring forth fruit unto God. Oh! to trust Jesus for fruit as well as for life.