You Will Know Them by Their Fruit: How to Produce Good Fruit

When Jesus was speaking in Matthew 7 He told his disciples to beware of false prophets and that one way of determining a false prophet was the fruit they produce. Often times in my life I have evaluated my own life to determine if I was producing good fruit. I will go over a few examples of how to produce good fruit and the three main keys of producing fruit in our lives.

^{Matthew 7:15} “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

Three Requirements of producing Fruit
Because Jesus used parables to give people visualizations of what he was trying to teach them I am also going to use a similar form and compare our lives to the most popular fruit tree apple trees. There are three main factors in apple trees producing good fruit. 1. An apple tree must have a well established root system in rich moist soil. 2. An apple tree requires yearly pruning to concentrate growth on healthy branches and to form a good tree; dead and diseased branches must also be pruned. 3. Most importantly, an apple tree must have a pollinator.

Over the years as I examined my own life I felt the only form of fruit was leading others to Jesus. Although I believe this is a very important job we have as Christians it is not the only fruit we need to focus on. If we look at Galatians 5: ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 

What Fruit to Look For in Our Lives
The Bible tells us what the fruit of the spirit is. So we can ask ourselves do we have love? Do we love our spouses, do we love our neighbors, do we love others that don't treat us well? Do we have joy? Or are we constantly depressed, continually wanting material things we feel will make us happy? Do we have peace? Or our we anxious constantly worrying about tomorrow? Are we willing to have long-suffering and deny our fleshly desires to overcome sin? Do we have kindness? Are we kind to our coworkers, our customers, our spouses or kids when we are in bad moods? Do we have goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?

If we are missing the fruits of the spirit and we feel like we are producing bad fruit lets revisit the three things an apple tree needs to produce good fruit.

Steps to Take to Produce Good Fruit
1. Do we have our roots established in a good church? If we are not being challenged or growing consider transplanting yourself to another church that you can grow.

2. When is the last time you got out the pruning shears and looked at your life to see if there was anything unpleasing to God. Maybe there is a relationship that is causing you to stumble, maybe some friends that are a bad influence, music or entertainment that is not pleasing to God. Don't be affraid to cut back some dead or diseased things in your life it will help you produce better fruit.

3. Most importantly we need a pollinator. Have you been filled with the Holy Ghost? Have you committed your life to Jesus Christ. Without Jesus it doesn't matter what we do in our lives we can never produce good fruit without him. Sometimes just making a commitment to spend time in prayer and the Bible everyday is all we need to jump start our relationship and start seeing fruit in our lives instantly.