God Eagerly Anticipates His Harvest
I love gardening. I truly do, and if you are like me in this way, you are excited that we are now entering into that special time of the year where we are beginning to reap the harvest of our labors! It is so exciting to see the fruit come forth from all the hard work that we have done to ready the soil, plant and water the seeds, tend the garden, and to now have it all pay off with a rich harvest. It is such a glorious thing.
This past week, while picking some of the harvest from my garden, I was nudged by God that I was missing something important that He was trying to speak to me in the midst of my work. I was reminded of different passages that speak to His delightful enjoyment of tending and reaping the spiritual fruit of Christ’s righteousness in our lives. The well known passages from John 15 about the importance of us as dependent branches to abide in the Vine (Jesus) in order to bear fruit came to mind as often it does, but this time a few particular verses especially stood out to me:
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser…
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing…
My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.”
-John 15: 1; 5; 8-9
Meditating further on these and other verses I marveled that during all this time tilling, planting, watering, and tending to my garden how easy it was to miss that as much as I carefully tend to each of the needs of my crops in order to produce the best possible harvest, so He and much more so carefully tends to each of the needs of our spiritual lives in order to bring about the greatest possible harvest. This gives Him much satisfaction. If we human beings get satisfaction from the fruit of our labors in this way, how much more does our Father receive glory from the fruit that comes forth in our lives from His tilling, planting, watering, and tending our hearts?
Like a beautiful garden, we are created to grow. He is the One who ultimately causes the growth as we trust and abide in Him. He is the Vine and we are His branches. Even as the sap pours forth from the Vine into the branches, so Christ’s love pours forth from within our hearts into every area of our lives! As we abide in Him and allow for His love and biblical truth to continue to challenge, empower, and ultimately permeate every aspect of our being, the Father will greatly rejoice, because Christ’s life is being formed in us, and His being formed in us is the fruit of His labor.
-Pastor Shane