Fruitfulness Part 1 - The Fig Tree

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we come before You, ready to ingest Your Word today.  We ask of You, for revelation.  Give to each of us as we are ready to receive.  Let us not miss the exact Word meant for our day.  By Your Spirit, let each of us, receive and act on Your Will for our lives.  Let today, be a day of increased obedience, faith, healing and joy.  In the mighty name of Jesus.  Amen.

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JESUS' MINISTRY IN JERUSALEM

Mark 11:11-14; 20.21 (NKJV)

The Fig Tree

¹¹ And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when He had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.
¹² Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. ¹³ And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴
And His disciples heard in response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.”
²⁰ Now in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. ²¹ And Peter, remembering, said to Him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree which You cursed has withered away.”

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Fig trees, a popular source of inexpensive food in Israel, require three years from the time they are planted until they can bear fruit.  Each tree yields a great amount of fruit twice a year, in late spring and in early autumn.  The common fig bears a first crop, called thebreba crop, in the spring on last season's growth. The second crop is borne in the fall on the new growth and is known as the main crop.  This incident with Jesus occurred early in the spring when the leaves were beginning to bud.  The figs normally grow as the leaves fill out, but this tree, though full of leaves had none.  The tree looked promising but offered no fruit.  Jesus' harsh words to the fig tree could be applied to the nation of Israel.  Created to be fruitful, but Israel was spiritually barren.  Could these words also be applied to you?

Let's learn some basics about the culture of a fig tree, and compare it to the culture of Christ Jesus.

Location: Figs require full sun all day to ripen palatable fruits. Trees become enormous, and will shade out anything growing beneath.

• As a child of God, we require Jesus fully, whom is our Light, all day, to ripen the fruit within us.

Check out His Word:

- John 1:1-5 (MSG) ^1-2 The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word.  The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. ^3-5Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!— came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.  The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out.

• Are you allowing Jesus to shine on and in your life?

Irrigation: Young fig trees should be watered regularly until fully established. Water mature trees deeply at least every one or two weeks.  If a tree is not getting enough water, the leaves will turn yellow and drop. Also, drought-stressed trees will not produce fruit and are more susceptible to nematode damage. Recently planted trees are particularly susceptible to water deficits, often runt out, and die.

• As a child of God, we require living water, each and every day.  God is the spring of living water and Jesus is the One who leads us there. 

Check out His Word:

- Jeremiah 2:13; 17:13 (NIV) "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water."
"O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the LORD, the spring of living water."

- John 4:10; 7:38 (NIV)  "Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.'Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.' "

- Revelation 7:17 (NIV) "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

• Are you forsaking the spring of living water?

Pruning: Fig trees are productive with or without heavy pruning. It is essential only during the initial years. Trees should be trained according to use of fruit.  It is better to prune immediately after the main crop is harvested...

• To "prune," is to cut of/remove anything undesirable.

Check out His Word:

- John 15:2 (NIV) "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful."

• The pruning process is not fun, but it is necessary to remove sin, people and harmful habits that stop  the fruit from being produced.  Are you fighting the pruning process?

Pests and Diseases: Fig tree roots are a favorite food of gophers, who can easily kill a large plant. One passive method of control is to plant the tree in a large aviary wire basket. Birds can cause a lot of damage to the fruit. Nematodes, particularly in sandy soils, attack roots, forming galls and stunting the trees.Mitadulid and Carpophilus dried fruit beetles can enter ripening fruit through the eye and cause damage by introducing fungi and rots. They frequently breed in fallen citrus fruits. Keep a clean orchard by destroy fallen fruits and do not grow near citrus trees. Euryphid mites cause little damage but are carriers of mosaic virus from infected to clean trees.

• Can you guess our "pests" and 'diseases"?  Yup the devil, evil spirits and sin.

-Check out His Word:

- Job 1:7; 2:2 (NIV)  "The LORD said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Satan answered the LORD, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it."

- John 10:10 (NIV) " The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;"

- Genesis 4:7 (NIV) "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

- Romans 6 (NIV) ^"1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ²By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ³Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. ⁵If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. ⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— ⁷because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. ¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. ¹³Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.  ¹⁵What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. ¹⁸You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. ¹⁹I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²²But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Are you going to allow the enemy destroy what God created in you?  Are you going to allow sin, to kill you?  KEEP A CLEAN "ORCHARD."

Harvest: Figs must be allowed to ripen fully on the tree before they are picked. They will not ripen if picked when immature. Harvest the fruit gently to avoid bruising.

• Like the figs, we too must be allowed to ripen fully.  And this takes TIME, real personal and deep time in God's Word, with His Spirit and all in the Name of Jesus.  When we move immaturely, no one will benefit from the full goodness of God. And remember God is gentle.  He is gentle with us, therefore we should be gentle towards others.

- Check out God's Word:

- John 4:35 (NIV) " I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest."

- Revelation 14:15; 18 (NIV) "Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, 'Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.' "

"Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, 'Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth's vine, because its grapes are ripe.' "

I believe the Holy Spirit is revealing to many of us how detailed God is.  How nothing goes unanswered when it comes to Him.  To return back to Mark 11; the fig tree showed promise of fruit, but it produced none.  Don't be a vessel full of promise but lacking fruit.  Make the necessary decisions and actions of faith, that actually put faith to work in your life and displays substance.  If you don't you're like the barren fig tree.  Genuine faith has great potential; today, ask God to help you bear fruit for His Kingdom.


**There is a lot to take in, so this is The Good News for today and tomorrow.  Get it all in, and feel free to let me know if you need more time with it.**

It's time to pray...