Abiding Fruit
Benefits of Abiding
1 Thessalonians 5:23
Now may God himself, the God of peace, make you
pure, belonging only to him. May your whole self—spirit, soul, and
body—be kept safe and without fault when our Lord Jesus Christ comes.
NCV
The benefits of abiding in Christ are then stated by the Master.
John 15:7-8
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
To abide in Jesus is to understand the will of God. When we are close to God we want to pray and seek His glory. When this occurs, we will ask God for works that accomplish His goals. We will produce outward fruit because of our inward fruit. We will, be awarded because God will answer our prayers and petitions. We, thus, produce much fruit.
Notice the progressions -
- no fruit
- fruit
- more fruit
- much fruit
Those who are not in Christ, the unbelievers, are unable to produce fruit, because from God's perspective, without God man can accomplish nothing.
When we are saved, we receive the fruit of legal or judicial righteousness, sometimes called justification. We are viewed by God as being in Christ. We are determined to be holy. This is a marvelous fruit that only believers in Jesus have. This is right standing with God. It is an event whereby as part of our salvation, God says, "you my child are holy and mine." Paul calls this event justification.
When we become Christians, we are called upon to grow in God. This process is generally called sanctification.
The goal of sanctification is to bring more and more glory to God. The pain of chastisement and refinement we spoke of earlier in this study is the pain of sanctification. The process of is one ever growing stronger in our abiding in Christ. And, it is this process that produces more and more fruit.
