Fruit That Remains

Fruit that remains is your portion in Christ Jesus. If there is a place in your life that has felt like wilderness, like dryness, like a season that would not yield, hear this: your barrenness is over. Receive increase. Receive a harvest that lasts.

But a lasting harvest does not come from striving harder. It comes from standing in the right place. Let me show you three ways to position yourself to receive it. Acknowledge that you are the finished work of God. Live constantly in the consciousness of it. And then go, deliberately, into situations that will call that finished work out of you.

You are the finished work of God

There is a teaching everywhere in Christianity that says God is reactive — when you do, God does; when you don't, God doesn't. It sounds spiritual. It is unbiblical. Your God is not reactive. He is proactive.

Known to God from eternity are all His works.

Acts 15:18 (NKJV)

He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is not up today and down tomorrow depending on your performance. His mercy endures forever — He is not merciful when you weep and unmerciful when you don't. Now, your sin may keep you from encountering what He has done. But there is no sin that can undo what He has done, because He has already done it.

Look at salvation, and you will see the pattern for everything. Salvation was finished in eternity and manifested in time on the day you believed.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Ephesians 1:3-4 (NKJV)

The day you believed is the day you received it. It is not the day God did it. God did it in eternity. You cannot receive by faith what has not already been provided by grace. So the first step to fruit that remains is simply this: acknowledge that you already are the finished work of God — finished in eternity, being manifested in time.

Live from it, not toward it

For those of us who have received this gift, Jesus gives a second instruction: live constantly on this basis. Stop living as though it were not true.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

John 15:4-5 (NKJV)

Notice how Jesus says it. I am the vine, you are the branches. When did He become the vine? When did God make you a branch of Jesus? Not because you believed. You believed because God had already done it. Here is Jesus simply telling us what God has already made true, and then saying, now live as the branch you already are.

Because fruit is not something you do to become. Fruit is evidence of what you already are. You are not an apple tree straining to produce oranges so that one day you might qualify as an orange tree. You are an orange tree that has been producing apples, and the whole point is to stop producing apples and start producing what you actually are. You cannot bear the fruit until you first believe this is who you are.

So right now, in Christ, you are not trying to become chosen. You are chosen. You are not striving to become holy and blameless. You are holy and blameless, without spot or wrinkle. In the Spirit you are not trying to catch fire — you are already a flame.

Who makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire.

Psalm 104:4 (NKJV)

And you are not down here trying to scrub off everything that defiles you so that God will finally consent to anoint you. It is the other way around. You are so anointed that when something defiling comes near you, it is the defilement that gets destroyed. The temple of God is holy, and that temple is you. Stop approaching your own life as a beggar hoping to qualify. You already carry the fire.

So it does not matter if you do not feel this way. It does not matter if you are wrestling with anger or lust or depression, if you have not opened your Bible in a week, if you know exactly what you did last night or this morning. It does not matter what habit or addiction seems to have its hand on you. In Jesus, you are chosen, you are holy, you are blessed, you are without blame, you are a flame of fire. That is who you are, underneath every feeling to the contrary.

Walking in the Spirit is the same thing

When you look at the natural, at what your flesh is doing, the Bible calls that walking in the flesh, and it produces the works of the flesh. But when you overlook what you observe in the natural and choose to live according to what is true in the Spirit, that is walking in the Spirit, and it produces the fruit of the Spirit.

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Galatians 5:16, 22-23 (NKJV)

So Jesus and Paul are describing the very same thing. Live in Me and let Me live in you is the same as walk in the Spirit. To live in Jesus means let everything you do be done because of Him — pray because of what He did, lay hands on the sick because of what He did, act from the truth of what has happened to you. And to let Jesus live in you means that when you speak, you believe it is Jesus speaking through you; when you hug someone, it is Jesus embracing them; when you love, He is loving through you. Be constantly aware of it. Don't live in it today and out of it tomorrow because the mirror discouraged you. Stay there. Abide there.

Now go and let it show

Then comes the third step. Jesus says, go. Like the One who moved through every town and village, we must keep putting ourselves in situations where who we are on the inside is challenged to come out.

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.

John 15:16 (NKJV)

It looks ordinary. Your child says, I have a headache. What do you do? Live in Jesus and let Jesus live through you — lay your hand on them and command the sickness to go. Do that first, and then, yes, give the medicine or see the doctor. When you hear that we want to start small groups where people can meet Jesus, don't wait until you feel qualified. Open your home. When we need workers — in follow-up, in the children's department, in prayer, in online outreach — sign up, and if the group doesn't exist yet, start it. You do not need more Bible or more spirituality first. You already have all of it.

And when a friend or a coworker or someone in this room tells you their trouble — a marriage strained, a child in crisis, a boss making life hard — remember who you already are in Christ, and open your mouth and speak a word: concerning this situation, God is going to turn it around.

Here is the promise for those who go even when they do not feel anointed, who speak even when they do not feel led. Whenever we pray in the name of Jesus, God will answer. To pray in His name simply means it is not because of you, your prayer, or your goodness, but because of what Jesus has done. Every challenge you face is an occasion for the works of God to be put on display, so that people watching may come to believe what God has already done. That is fruit that remains — bringing out into the open what God has already finished in eternity. And because it is His work, it is eternal.