Fruitfulness is like a journey, and its path is outlined by certain key Bible principles. It is important and helpful for us to have a good understanding of these principles as we each travel through this path in various areas of our lives.

The Covenant of Fruitfulness

Covenants are the starting point of fruitfulness. They are the basis on which God commits himself to continually provide us (His people and the sheep of his pasture) with all the resources we need to be fruitful. In Genesis 17:1-6, under the Old Testament, God entered into a covenant with Abraham and said to him, “…I will make my covenant between me and thee… And I will make thee exceeding fruitful…” The covenant was sealed through circumcision. Under the New Testament we also enter into a covenant with God, through Jesus Christ and the covenant is sealed by the circumcision of our hearts ( Jeremiah 31:33-34, Hebrews 8:10 ). Under this new covenant, the promise of God to Abraham (to bless him and make him fruitful) becomes ours by faith in Christ Jesus.

The Vine of Fruitfulness

Through the New Testament covenant we enter into a relationship with God, in which Jesus is the True Vine, we the branches and God is the husbandman ( John 15:1, 5). In this context, being fruitful demands that we recognise our critical dependence on the True Vine, and stay firmly connected to him. Jesus said “( John 15:4) Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” Nothing in us, apart from the life of the true vine can make us fruitful. Without Jesus, all our worldly possessions and efforts are not sufficient enough to make us fruitful. Jesus emphatically said “…without me ye can do nothing. (John 15:5)”.

So what does it mean exactly to abide in him? To abide in him means to be rooted in Christ so that we can be built up in him ( Colossians 2:7). The Bible says in Isaiah 27:6 “He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.” When we take root downwards in Christ, we are positioned to bear fruit upwards ( Isaiah 37:31). Abiding in him is about building our life on the foundation of Christ the solid rock. Let’s take for example marriage, having a fruitful marital relationship means to build your relationship on Jesus by hearing and doing what His Word says about marriage ( Luke 6:47-48), that is how he (through His Word) abides in you and you in him. That way you can go through the storm of adversity, and be productive while your marriage is consistently nourished by the sap of life that comes only from the true vine.

It is possible that we abide in him in some areas of our lives and not in others. Perhaps this is why we bring forth fruits in varying degrees – some thirty, some sixty and some a hundred fold.

The Patience for Fruitfulness

The process of fruitfulness demands that we be rich in patience. This is obvious because from seed to harvest time has to pass. This means we need to understand our seasons. I literally learnt this the hard way when as a young boy I planted a cashew tree, but became inpatient with the natural process of growth. I applied an overdose of fertilizer to the plant expecting to see it quadruple in size by the next morning. But to my utter disbelief the plant had wilted and died due to the overdose of fertilizer. In the parable of the sower ( Luke 8:15), Jesus had this to say about the seeds that fell on the good ground: “But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience”.

Patience is not only about waiting, it also means to remain the same, in the face of changing circumstances. That means come rain or sunshine we do not get frustrated and give up, neither do we spoil things by trying to force them to happen in line with our own timetable. For example, financial fruitfulness comes as we wisely invest our God given resources and patiently wait for God to give the increase in His own time. However if we get impatient and try to get rich quick, we are in danger of developing what the Bible calls an “evil eye” which eventually leads to poverty ( Proverbs 28:22).

The Pain of Fruitfulness

I once heard someone say that “there can not be growth without pain”. As we grow and increase, things break and give way in our lives. In a literal sense, a woman goes through pain as she delivers her child. The spiritual process of nurturing children in the Lord is often equally painful as Apostle Paul suggests: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” ( Galatians 4:19). God purges us so that we can bring forth much fruit ( John 15:2). This is sometimes a painful process that involves cleansing and pruning to pluck away dead weights so that we can run with patience the race that is set before us.

We are warned not to despise the chastening of the Lord, “for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” ( Hebrews 12:5-6). No one likes pain (except of course the depraved masochists), but it is something we are very likely to encounter on the path to fruitfulness. However, we can take solace in the fact that God will not allow us to go through any needless pain.

The chastening of God are for our profit, and though they may be grievous when we experience them, the Bible says in Hebrews 12:10“…afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” ( Hebrews 12:11).

The Battle of Fruitfulness

We are in the middle of a raging battle between the kingdom of God and the powers of darkness. The enemy will do everything he can do to try and stop the children of God from living a life of fruitfulness. According to one parable Jesus put forth to his disciples, this battle gets more intense while men sleep. ( Matthew 13:24-25) “…The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.”

The point of emphasis here is the need for sobriety and vigilance. We must resist the enemy and his devices while remaining steadfast in prayers. In Genesis 26, God had blessed Isaac to the point of greatness. This provoked the philistines to envy, and like tares among wheat they harassed Isaac and his servants. But God brought him to a place where the philistines stopped striving with him. Isaac called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, “..For now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land” ( Genesis 26:22). We will always have battles to fight on the road to fruitfulness, but as we fight clothed with God’s holy armour, he will give us the victory and bring us to the place called “Rehoboth” our land of fruitfulness.

The Miracle of Fruitfulness

In the ultimate, even when we have done what we need to do, we must understand that fruitfulness is a miracle! It is a miracle because God is the supplier of the resources for our fruitfulness. Unfortunately we take these things for granted. The Bible says ( Mark 4:26 -27) “… So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.”

Think about it, you plant a seed and water it, then after some time you get a tree and a seed, how do you explain this? (Without getting entangled in vain scientific illusions) Now that is unbeatable. We may never be able to fully understand the work of God that underpins our fruitfulness, nevertheless, we need to be humble and remain trusting. It’s not by power nor by might but by the spirit says the Lord. God is the giver of increase ( 1 Corinthians 3:7), so give him all the glory.