Preparing for Fruitfulness

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Glory to God!

This will be a year of abundance as we apply God's Word to our lives!

The Lord has been speaking to us about sowing seed and fruitfulness. Two Sundays ago Alexander shared a message entitled What is your increase strategy? which you can listen to here. Alexander looked at the principles related to having an effective strategy for increase and showed us the following:

• Know the state of your assets (seed) - what has God given you to produce with? (Proverbs 27:23-27)
• Know your environment (soil) - understand your location, season, and the conditions (Matthew 13:1-9)
• Know God's vision for your life (harvest) - what will the fruit be that God wants you to produce? (Jeremiah 29:11)
• Make wise choices - learn to be an investor (delayed gratification) rather than a consumer (instant gratification)

• God gives specific seed for specific fruit.
• God will use what you already have.
• For a continuous supply of fruit you have to continue to sow.
• Pay more attention to the seed than to the fruit.
• Fruit grows constantly, not suddenly.

Yesterday we studied John 15:1-17 as Richard spoke to us about Fruitfulness, which you can listen to here. In his message, Richard showed us the following:

The Motivation for Fruitfulness (Why should we be fruitful?)

• The believer is created in Christ to be fruitful.
• Jesus has chosen and appointed us to be fruitful.
• The Father is at work in our lives to make us fruitful.
• Fruitfulness glorifies the Father.
• Fruitfulness demonstrates that we belong to Jesus and are His followers.
• Fruitfulness influences the effectivity of our prayers.
• Fruitfulness leads to joy.

The Method for Fruitfulness (How are we to be fruitful?)

• We must depend on Jesus and remain in Him.
• We must know the will of Jesus - His Word must remain in us.
• We must do the will of Jesus.
• We must pray according to God's will and in Jesus' name.

The Nature of the Fruit (What is the fruit?)

• The fruit that we are to produce is the manifestation of God's nature - His love, joy, peace, etc
• Fruitfulness is the manifestation of the disciple's obedience to God.
• Fruitfulness is the manifestation of being like Jesus and doing His works.

We praise God for His revelation to us and for His passion to make us fruitful for His glory!