“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb
yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is
in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” –Genesis 1:11
There is an undeniable consistency to the natural order of this
earth. The sun rises, the sun sets, seasons change,
and if you plant then you will reap. It
is consistent and constant, we depend on the natural order of this earth to
remain in order. When we stop to
consider the natural order, one will find that we can learn from it. From the beginning God designed this earth to
be a habitation of man. If we look closely,
the natural order of the physical things can teach us of the natural order of
the spiritual. Jesus of course
understood this and often used nature as a teaching agent.
Down here in South Georgia we have acres upon acres of pecan
groves. Within the tree lies the ability
to produce more trees given the right environment, and if you plant a pecan
tree, by and by one can expect that tree to produce pecans. The “seed
within itself will produce fruit of its kind.” You are not going to plant pecan seed and come
back 9 years later to find apples growing on it. You are not going to sow a kernel of corn to
find in six to eight months a crop of cotton.
The seed will yield fruit of itself.
There is an obvious consistency about it. You can count on it, it is a guarantee. The beauty of it all is that it takes both
what is without and what is within to produce good fruit. You can take a watermelon seed and throw it
on the hood of a car, come summer time I guarantee you that you will not have
any watermelon from that seed. However,
if you sow it in good soil, water, and weed it…..come summer time, well, you
know what will happen, because the earth is dependable that way. It takes both what is without and what is
within to produce good fruit. So what
does that mean to us? First of all, it
means that we can thank God for giving us this beautiful earth that feeds us so
well, but beyond that we can take these natural occurrences and apply them to
the spiritual.
Holiness is not a man-made concept no more than the earth
is. Therefore the fruit of holiness
cannot be man-made either. There are
scores and scores of people who desire to be better people. They want to live according to the Bible, and
I empathize with this (me being one of them).
However, we have to recognize that like a tree we will yield fruit of
ourselves. If you do not have the Spirit
of God within you than you are like a pecan tree that is trying to bear
apples. There is no holiness within a
man when he comes into this world and there will never be holiness within a man
unless God puts it there; but when the Spirit of God plants that seed in your
heart…then it’s a whole new conversation.
The Holy Ghost in you WILL yield the fruits of holiness, but let us take
great care. It takes both what is within
and without. You cannot just throw it on
the hood of a car and expect fruit. We
must have the Holy Ghost within, but we also have to position ourselves in the
right place without. We must align
ourselves with Godly people, must sow our time in God’s word, spend some hours
on our knees, and leave off the persons and places that hinder us from bearing
fruit unto holiness. Then the seed of
holiness will yield fruit of itself.
God created the earth as a habitation for man, and he created
man as a habitation for his Spirit. He
wanted fellowship with us from the beginning and he wanted us to yield fruit
after His kind. I am convinced beyond
all doubt that there are many well-meaning and kind people who are working and
striving for the fruit of holiness without the seed of it, and convinced still
further that there are others who have or had the seed of holiness sown within
and refused to position themselves in the proper environment without. Let us take a lesson from the pecan tree and
understand that the seed of holiness, sow in the
heart of man, and properly tended to; will produce good fruit.
