L3-Is Your Fruit In Season?

Mark 11:12-14
On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He [Jesus] became hungry. Seeing at a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and when He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it,"May no one ever eat fruit from you again!"

I think it's interesting how Jesus expected to find fruit on the tree to eat even though He knew it wasn't the season for the fruit. We go through different seasons in life like Solomon so wisely noted in Ecclesiastes 3. We may not always be in our best season or our favorite season, but God is still expecting us to produce fruit for Him. Yes, there will be seasons where it is easier to bear fruit and seasons where we will bear more fruit than other seasons of life, but there should never be a season when we aren't bearing any fruit.

What fruit are we talking about? Galatians 5:22-23 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control..." This is the fruit that Jesus wants us to produce. Different seasons of life will usually dictate which fruit we are producing more of or less of, but Jesus should never come to us expecting fruit and find nothing. He was so passionate about it that when He found no fruit on the fig tree, He cursed it so that it died. Notice that the tree was not without leaves though. So much so, it was misleading. It had leaves which would make one assume it also had fruit. God didn't call us to produce leaves. Leaves can be things like going to church, volunteering, leading a Bible study, etc. While these are good things, apart from a relationship with God, they cannot produce fruit. Anyone can produce leaves, but we have to let God produce the fruit within us.

How do we make sure we are always producing fruit? We will only produce fruit as we are daily in God's word and in constant communication with Him. God uses different seasons in our life to produce more fruit in us. We must wait for something because God is producing in us the fruit of patience. We discover addictions in our life so God can produce in us the fruit of self-control. We go through times that test our faith so God can produce in us the fruit of faithfulness. The wilted, dried up fig tree was of no use to Jesus when He needed it. May Jesus always find us hungry for His word, communing with Him, and producing fruit that He can use to bring Himself glory through us!