FRUIT FROM THE TREES
By P. A. Campbell
INTRODUCTION
When my wife Dee, my son Daniel and I were in Jamaica, West Indies in February of 2004 we stayed with a dear friend named Icydore Murry. We had a sweet and restful time with her. In her back yard she had several fruit trees. We noticed that the mangos were not ripe enough for enjoyment. She informed us that they were not in season but we enjoyed coconut water and freshly squeezed orange juice. We also noticed that some of the orange trees had oranges that were brown because of a lack of rain at the time.
God’s word is like rain (Isaiah 55:10,11) and we are like trees in whom He expects to see fruit. To whom much is given much is required. As you read the following pages my prayer is that your heart will be prepared soil for God’s word and that you will be-...filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:11).
Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King (Authors of Experiencing God and other books to help believers have intimate encounters with God) recorded a history of God’s people experiencing renewal and great awakenings over the years. In the book entitled “Fresh Encounter” God’s desire is explained in this way—“God is looking for a holy people through whom He can work to reveal Himself to a watching world.” Without a doubt the world is looking for some fruit and they are hungry for real love, joy and peace.
Blackaby and King’s research revealed that during the first Great Awakening from 1740-1743 traveling evangelists George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent were used of God to ignite a movement of the Holy Spirit among the people of God in New England. In 1792 the second Great Awakening took place in England. Years earlier there was consistent prayer that took place among pastors of the Northampton Association on the first Monday of every month as well as in their private times of intercession. Other prayer meetings started across denominational lines. By the 1790’s it was the local church pastors who were leading out in revivals among believers and great evangelistic endeavors. In many instances there would be a full week of spiritual renewal time (Revival) followed by another full week of evangelistic outreaches with thousands of conversions (Spiritual Awakening).
William Carey began his preaching ministry at this time. He led the Baptist Missionary Society and went to India to minister as their first missionary and many followed as a result. Mission work beginning in local areas and efforts to move out to the uttermost parts of the world is a result of God’s people lining up their will with His will through prayer.
Similar to the time prior to the first Great Awakening there are many who are church members today but have not yet connected with the True Vine--Jesus Christ. He is the only One who can bring forth the fruits of The Spirit in our lives. If a believer in Jesus is not abiding in Him on a daily basis demonstrated by obedience and allowing Christ to guide his or her life then there will be no long lasting evidence of Christ-like character.
If there’s a lack of Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control as well as a lack of sharing the good news about Jesus with the unsaved then we need to come to the True Vine for His help. The questions that a follower of Christ needs to ask are: 1. Is there much evidence in my life that Jesus is in control of me? 2. Have I allowed Him to accomplish His purposes in the world through my gifts and abilities?
The Word of God and the prayers of the saints during the Great Awakenings have been used to confirm in my heart the need for us as God’s people to pray according to His desires for us and for the unsaved in this world. As we depend on God daily, fear Him, evangelize (local and foreign missions involvement according to Acts 1:8), put off sin as well as put on Christ-like character and set an example for youth, we will bear the fruits of the Spirit which will bring glory to Jesus. When He is lifted up, He will draw the unsaved to Himself.
The time is now to begin to pray like never before for God to take residence in us for His glory and send us as His ambassadors where ever He desires. We live in a time when there are more unsaved who need to hear the gospel than ever before and there are more who are responding than times past. As the population continues to increase God continues to ask the passionate question--- “Who will go for us?” As we will discover when we pray for fruit from the trees, God is concerned about our condition as well as the mission.
Let us begin to pray for fruit from the trees beginning with our own lives, so that our Father will be glorified and not grieved. Remember that without Him you can do nothing. Depend on God in prayer like Daniel who gave thanks but also asked God for help (Daniel 6:10,11 NIV). Let’s make it our goal to hear Him say “Well done my good and faithful (fruitful) servant.”
At the end of each section you will find questions to consider and a model for prayer that will provide an opportunity to allow God to work on you internally. I strongly suggest not to read ahead in order to get to the prayer without reading the pages prior. This entire material is designed to guide you through a time of self-examination. This does not mean that you are the one who does the examining. David invited God to examine him when he said “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23,24 NIV). Please take your time and read through these five areas of examination and allow God to show you how to become more conformed to His image and manifest fruit like a tree planted by rivers of water (Psalm 1:3).
FRUIT FROM THE TREES
By P. A. Campbell
TRUST
Chapter 1
I learned a lesson about trusting during my first visit to Jamaica. The first time I visited Jamaica I was with some other students from Philadelphia College of Bible in the early 90’s. While ministering to the people there we discovered that someone from that area was stealing the water from large drum containers. This was causing suspicion and frustration on the camp grounds. Our leader had an idea that might solve the problem; he mentioned "We can send someone early in the morning to keep alert for the thief. But we need some one who could be bold enough to tackle him down and hold him." Although I never played college football, the team agreed that I could do it. After agreeing to put my life on the line for the sake of others I then had a thought---- Suppose there’s more than one thief.
The leader agreed to send a worker named Steve with me. Steve professed to know Christ and we had great conversations about spiritual things for days. I was so glad that Steve was more than willing to tackle the thief with me. There was only one problem. Steve had one arm. His arm was cut off by someone because he was accused of stealing something years prior. I thought to myself how can someone tackle with one arm. Why can’t I have someone with two arms. I was depending on a one armed man to help me catch a thief or possibly more than one thief. We sat in the woods before the break of day with our three arms ready to catch the thirsty crooks and blow a whistle. Thank God that each time we waited-- they weren’t thirsty; or were they?
Not long after this it was discovered that Steve, my one armed buddy was stealing items from the camp grounds and some evidence showed that he may have been involved with the stolen water incidents. The guy who I was trusting in for help was missing more than an arm; He apparently didn’t have much integrity. I’m thankful that the God I trust in for help doesn’t lack power, integrity, or love. King David wrote—“Oh my God, I trust in thee.” (Psalm 25:2)
As children of God, from the time of our conversion we are introduced to the word trust. Words for saving faith may come wrapped in different packages but it carries the same idea. You may have heard the scripture- “Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”, or another common verse is …whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” There’s also “By grace you have been saved through faith. If I were to say I believe in him, I trust in him, or I have faith in him—the idea is the same, although some may misunderstand what saving faith is about. This will be addressed later. Faith has been defined as "a conviction of the mind based upon evidence." God has provided evidence that He exists through creation, the human conscience, the conversion of His saints and other events throughout history (His-story). There are scientists who are discovering that God’s word is more trustworthy than any theory man comes up with. By His awesome deeds He has shown that He is trustworthy, powerful, loving, and personal.
Trusting continues beyond our initial salvation. “We walk by faith and not by sight.” (Hebrews 11:6) “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart”….(Proverbs 3:5)
Maybe you are not depending on Him alone for your salvation. He doesn’t want you to depend on another way for salvation because Jesus said I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life—(John 14:6 NIV). We can’t trust our own goodness because we fall short of God’s glory--- “For all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God (Romans 3:23 NIV). Therefore if we trust in ourselves we’re trusting in a bridge that can’t reach across to God. Only Jesus can bridge the gap because of His death for us and His resurrection from the dead. “Not of works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost…(Titus 3:5 NIV).
Allow the Lord to show you areas in your life where you may not be trusting Him. If this doesn’t seem very important remember that …without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6 NIV). After we trust Christ as our Lord and Savior our trusting does not end. We need to continue to live a life of dependence upon Him. We don’t continue trusting Him to remain saved because we could not save ourselves and we can’t preserve our salvation. He’s the One that saves and keeps His children secure. Jesus said—I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand (John 10:28 NIV).
In order to show evidence of Christ-like character we need to depend on Jesus as a branch depends on a vine. HOW CAN WE TELL WHETHER OR NOT WE ARE TRUSTING IN THE LORD? A child of God who is not trusting Jesus daily starts to show a detachment from the vine by:
1. Not praying and not asking others to intercede;
2. Not reading God’s word daily and exercising faith by obedience.
3. Not seeking out spiritual members of God’s family for accountability, encouragement and Biblical instruction.
Regarding prayer; one of the many things I admire about my wife Dee is her commitment to intercede for others. She has a prayer list that she keeps in her Bible. If you’re on her prayer list, know for sure that you’re being prayed for. There are times when our children may cause us to reschedule certain things in the morning without warning. In their own cute way they teach us to trust in God’s sovereignty as well as the importance of getting up early. Regardless of how chaotic our schedule becomes as missionaries, my wife will always make time during the day to depend on God in prayer for others and herself. I’m inspired to stay on my knees as I see her determination to intercede. By the way; I’m so glad that I’m also on her prayer list.
The Lord wants us to pray for ourselves as well. It’s OK to ask God for help as I mentioned earlier (Daniels prayer—Daniel 6:10,11). Some believe that if we ask others to intercede for us this shows weakness. This actually shows wisdom because we discover God’s power as we agree with others in prayer regarding our needs (Matthew 18:19). Paul asked the Ephesian believers to pray for him to be bold with the gospel message and he told the believers in Corinth that their prayers helped him (Ephesians 6:18,19; II Corinthians 1:11).
Notice above in point #2 where I mentioned that faith in God’s word is accompanied by obedience. A person who has faith also has feet that walk in obedience. How do you know Moses had faith that God could deliver His people? His feet went to Pharaoh with a command from God and his feet also walked on dry ground believing that God’s power could hold many thousands of tons of water back from drowning him and the Hebrew people. Noah’s feet went to get some wood to build an ark and as he built he warned the people of coming judgment. He then walked into the ark with his family members, believing God’s word. You can’t say you trust God and not show it. Your faith and your feet are connected. If you believe that God’s way is best your feet will avoid the path of evil and walk in paths of righteousness for His name sake. The chorus to a song I grew up singing in worship service goes like this ---"Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus…but to trust and obey."
What does James have to say about this? “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder (James 2:17-19 NIV). I have a feeling that if Moses and Noah could have been present when James wrote or preached this they would say “Amen Brother!!!” Of course our works don’t save us. Don’t misunderstand this. Our works are the evidence (fruits) that we have faith. How much confidence would you have in a mango tree that showed no fruit after every rain season? There is an intellectual belief that knows the truth about Jesus but that is as far as the demons go. There’s another type of belief that is demonstrated by a person making a u-turn from depending on any thing else or any one else for salvation and trusts Jesus as Lord and Savior.
As a child of God, just because you come to Jesus when you have problems doesn’t mean you’re depending on Him daily as you ought to. In some cases the problems come because we are not living a life of dependent obedience. An elderly preacher put it this way-- “There’s a difference between a cross and a crop.” A cross could be a challenge that comes as a result of self-denial and be used to glorify Christ or teach a Christian to depend more on God. This is part of the journey of knowing Christ as Paul mentions--…That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10 NASB). A crop is what comes up as a result (consequence) of what a person did or did not plant. It could be a good crop, a bad crop or no crop at all. As we depend on Jesus He will tell us what to plant, how to plant, how to grow and how to be fruitful.
God desires for us to be fruitful internally with Christlike characteristics as well as being fruitful as we lead others to Christ (Proverbs 11:30). If we are depending on our own understanding in our decision making instead of trusting in the Lord with all our hearts (Proverbs 3:5,6) we will be lacking fruit. God has a way of bringing us to challenging situations that require faith. There are giants that we will see from a distance and we can be like young David and run towards the challenge or run from it. In Number chapter 13 there's a story of 12 spies that Moses sent to check out the scene before moving forward. All twelve spies were influential leaders among the people of Israel. When they saw giants in the land 10 of the spies (leaders) decided to lean on their own understanding regarding how to go about conquering. Only two of the spies named Joshua and Caleb focused on how big their God was instead of the size of the giants...They also found a lot of sweet fruit...symbolic of fruitfulness God wanted to see in His people.
A person of faith looks at challenges as an opportunity to see God show His love, power and wisdom. A person full of doubts or self-reliance constantly vacillates when challenges come. Faith leads to courageous victory instead of wimpy vacillation. 40 years in the desert was the consequence of not trusting God. When we are convinced that unbelief is really something evil, we will avoid it. It is a sinful thing to be shunned daily because it leads to turning from the living God to depending on other idols or our own way of thinking (Hebrews 3:12). The devil knows that if God's people will dwell in doubt, they will not move forward in victory and fruitfulness. They will wonder in places that may seem good to them but it's not what is best.
When I was ministering on a radio station in 1996 in Albany NY, there was obviously a season of fruitfulness. I was working at a rescue mission as a youth ministry coordinator that God was blessing...I received a raise and my wife Dee just received a raise from General Electric. The natural man would say it is a good thing to remain. While we were in consistent prayer using I Chronicles 4:10 (The Jabez Prayer) as our prayer model for 40 days we were led to go to Philadelphia to start planning for missionary work oversees. Some become complacent with the fruit they see in their lives but God prunes us and brings challenges to bring forth more fruit and much fruit (John 15:1,2,5).
I had no job and Dee didn't have a job but God kept confirming that we needed to face the giant of finances and trust Him to fight our battles (Deuteronomy 3:22). We remember close relatives were scratching their heads and sharing some concerns about making this faith move..Although they were not telling us not to go, they were obviously concerned. Shortly after more confirmation we heard about job opportunities opening for Dee in Cherry Hill NJ. It was God's way for encouraging us like He encouraged Gideon before he went into battle. A job opened up for me as a youth pastor for 6 months at a local church.
After that interim youth pastor position was over there was another financial giant to face. One morning I heard an angry bird chirping near my front door so loudly that I could not ignore it. I tried to pretend it wasn't there but I couldn't take it any more...I opened the door and the bird was standing at the front door like a Fed-Ex man with a message from heaven. I heard the message clearly.."Pete, the same way I take care of this bird, I'm going to provide another assignment for you that I will use to supply your needs." Shortly after I had an opportunity to work at a vocational high school as an assistant teacher witnessing to youth and adults. During that time we had a desire to visit Kenya to see what God was doing there. The church we joined was Christian Stronghold Church in Philadelphia and that year the place they were planning to go to for a short-term missions trip was Kenya, Africa.
As we moved forward in faith we saw God show himself faithful...as a result we had fruitful ministry...Faith produces obedient actions and fruitful results.
Seeking out spiritual members of God's family is vital ….Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching---Hebrews 10:24,25. There are so many examples in scripture that show us the importance of connecting with other believers for fellowship and encouragement. Rev. Al Henson has taught me that----"believers in the body of Christ need to enjoy life together in the Lord’s presence." Because we’re God’s children and He’s enjoying who we are in Christ we can enjoy being in His presence. Detachment from this body life is detrimental.
As a teen I remember being persecuted in the locker room by an unbeliever. Moments later I looked up and saw another fellow believer of Christ entering the locker room. Just the sight of him was a breath of fresh air. When we were able to talk in private I told him I thanked God for him and I asked him to pray for the unsaved guy who was giving me a hard time. I also spent time in house fellowships with other youth where we were taught the Word of God and trained to reach others with the Gospel. Being around other youth and adults for encouragement helped keep me on track for Jesus. We experienced body life together. We saw God answer prayer and souls were saved in Queens, Brooklyn and other surrounding areas of New York.
When we say we don’t need to be around other believers and we depend on some other way for strength and encouragement we are not trusting God’s way. This is disobedience to Hebrews 10:25 and evidence that we are not trusting God. Some may say well I can’t trust in man so I prefer trusting only in God. Before accepting this as a spiritual statement let us consider something. Whoever has this attitude is missing out on the benefits of God’s design for their own edification and the edification of others. According to Romans 12 we are His body and the Holy Spirit ministers through his body. In fellowship with His body we can learn how to use our spiritual gifts to minister to others and receive ministry. We also learn what mercy and truth is all about in The Body of Christ as we interact with other imperfect people (Psalm 25:10; 85:10; 44:10). We receive mercy, forgiveness and gracious blessings that we can testify about and we demonstrate this mercy and grace to others who may offend us at times. We learn the truth about who God is and who we are in Christ and we can’t help but worship together. When one part of the body decides to be detached from the other parts, blood cells cannot flow through that part of the body. No wonder God’s word uses this analogy.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
1. Are you sure you have placed your trust in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? If not, pray to receive Jesus at this moment. Here’s a prayer that may express what’s in your heart:
Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I’ve sinned and I do trust in You to be the solution to my sin problem. I believe that you died for me and rose from the dead. I’m trusting in you to get to heaven and nothing else. Forgive me and be my Lord from this day forward. Give me the peace, power, joy and wisdom that only You can give. In Jesus name, Amen.
2. If you do have an assurance of your salvation, is there any evidence in your life of trusting (having faith) in God as you ought to? ( praying for help, obeying or fellowshipping with other believers etc…)
3. Is there anything you can ask another believer to pray with you about? Is there wisdom or encouragement that you have been neglecting from the Body of Christ.
Remember when you pray—It’s OK to ask God to help you in your unbelief. (Mark 9:24)
A PRAYER FOR FRUITFULNESS:
Dear Lord, I realize that it is Your will that I bear much fruit. I commit to trusting You daily for every need by asking for Your help and following the commands from Your Word and believing that Your way is best regarding my relationships with others. Amen
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