Bearing Real Fruit

"The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself." (Mark 4:26-29)

The sower has to scatter the seed. When the harvest is ripe he has to come back and pick the fruit. But the process in between those two events is largely organic. Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is organic." The seed grows because it has an inherent life force supplied by God. We can not organize that into our churches. We cannot program that into our churches. We cannot preach that into our churches.

We have to sow the seed and let God produce the fruit. Now there is a real sense in which the Word of God incarnated into our lives makes us the seed. Our daily life in this world tells the story even more than the words we speak. That is why, I think, Jesus says, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." We are called to die to self and to follow Christ.

Is it possible that one of the reasons we spend so much time "begging" people to live a Christian life after they get in the church is that they have been converted to "Christianity" but never been regenerated in Christ? If there is no life force in a person, we can preach at them forever and they will never change. We sow the seeds, and we gather the harvest. God, however, must produce the life within.