Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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Okay, let's put away all the junk food snacks for a minute, and let's reach for a healthy snack today. Yes, it's time for some fresh fruit. It could be an apple, an orange, a pear, but the next time you eat one, would you look for the example on the inside? I wouldn't recommend you eat the entire apple; you'll probably want to stop when you get to the core. But notice what's there in the middle of that apple. Yes, seeds that can make another apple!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Fruit With Seeds."
That little encounter with the inside of a piece of fruit can actually take us all the way back to the first fruit that God ever made, and to a powerful example of some of what gives our lives real meaning.
In Genesis 1:29, our word for today from the Word of God, the Lord told Adam and Eve, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it." As I was reading that the other day, it really struck me that God has created things with the seeds of reproducing themselves built in. When God created man and woman, He told them to "be fruitful and increase in number" (Genesis 1:28).
But that principle of fruit carrying the seeds of the next generation goes beyond just physical reproducing. Jesus said to His followers, "I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last." And certainly that fruit includes people who will come to Jesus because of you. They are fruit that your life is supposed to be producing. How are you doing?
The great creative plan of God is that when He creates a life, He creates it with the potential of reproducing life like itself - "Fruit with seed in it." The moment you gave your heart to Jesus Christ, God made you fruit with seeds, with the capability and the purpose of making some more like you! Apples generate apples, oranges generate oranges, and followers of Jesus generate other followers of Jesus. Or at least they're supposed to.
But research shows that only an estimated ten percent of believers ever tell someone about their relationship with Jesus Christ, which means nine out of ten believers are missing their destiny. They have the seeds of life to plant in another heart, but they're doing nothing with those seeds. And people around us go on dying without Christ, and without any hope of heaven.
Isn't it time you start bearing some fruit, like people who will be in heaven because you helped them know how? And God's plan is that we reproduce our own kind. That moms introduce other moms to Jesus, that students introduce other students to Jesus, golfers point golfers to Christ, businesspeople reach other businesspeople, wounded people lead other wounded people to the Savior. God has made you who you are; He's placed you where you are so you can take people like you to heaven with you! How are you doing with your divine assignment?
We're not talking here about you adding some new activities to your already over-stuffed life. We're talking about using things you already do to bring other people who do them to Jesus. You already live where you live, you go to school where you go to school, you work where you work, and you play where you play. Just go there with the conscious mission of taking some of those people to heaven with you!
There are seeds of spiritual life that God planted in you the day you met Jesus. And He's counting on you to plant those seeds in the people like you. In fact, their eternity depends on it.