“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 sunrises and sets, the 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 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. 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, it means
that we can thank God for giving us a 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 manmade concept no more than the earth is. Therefore, the fruit of holiness cannot be
fabricated 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 is a completely 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.
