2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and exhort, with great patience and instruction.
Flavorsome fruits such as cherries, figs, peaches, pears, apples, apricots, mangoes and a variety of berries are harvested during summer. However, each season has seasonal fruits that embellish our supermarkets. Winter treats are oranges, mandarins and lemons; spring produces delicious green and golden kiwis and autumn fruits are mulberries and plums.
Fig trees produce fruit before it begins to produce leaves. So a tree full of leaves also has fruit ready to be harvested. However, there was a tree that Jesus passed by that had leaves but no fruit. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs (Mark 11:13). In winter, the fig tree would drop its leaves and go dormant, however if there are leaves out of season there would be fruits as well. Jesus cursed the fig trees as it had leaves but no scrumptious fruits.
We must produce fruits in and out of season. If going through a tough time makes us grumpy and depressed, then we are like the fig tree with leaves but no fruit. Leaves represent our faith but fruits are the actions that testify our faith. Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:17). Winter fruits are as delicious and nutritious as the summer fruits. With the change in seasons, fruiting should not stop. Watering our roots with the Word of God produces the fruits of giving and generosity and tilling the soil of our hearts cultivate forgiveness and forbearance. We have no excuse to stop producing fruit.
Summer Is Coming:
1. Working: Just like the garden, our heart needs plowing, tilling and digging before it can become a flowering and fruitful garden. In every season God is perfecting our heart and seasoning us to produce lasting, juicy succulent fruits. Flourishing and fruitful life requires pruning and hard work. Tilling and pruning season produces the yummy fruits called ‘love’, ‘patience’ and ‘humility’.
2. Waiting: As a plant grows and matures into a tree through the rough seasons, suffering, trial and persecution matures us spiritually. Endurance produces godly character. Perseverance, character; and character, hope (Romans 5:4). Waiting produces the fruit of perseverance.
3. Watering: As watering the plants and trees is inevitable to reap an abundant harvest, watering the roots of our faith is essential to keep growing and producing spiritual fruits. Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants (Deuteronomy 32:2). Reading and ruminating on God’s Word waters us to remain healthy and plentiful.
Summer is coming; work, wait and water to remain fruitful and flourishing.
Matthew 7:17 A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.
Prayer: Father God, teach, correct, rebuke, prune and exhort me to produce good fruits in my lows and highs. Help me to be a fruit bearing tree in all seasons. Amen.
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