Growth is the prime indicator in Christ’s view of real honest faith.
Not growth for growth sake, but healthy growth that leads to healthy fruit.
“Some thirty fold
Some sixty fold
Some a hundred fold.”
What is meant by fruit? The Apostle Paul gives us the definition of fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is primarily love. The other fruits are important too.
joy
peace
patience
kindness
goodness
faithfulness
gentleness
self control
But they all flow from the fruit of love.
The function of the fruit of any plant is reproduction. The apple is designed to create another apple tree. Therefore, the fruit of the spirit must be seen from a reproductive point of view.
The fruit of peace, for example, is not best seen in a peaceful person, but in a person who brings the peace of God to troubled people and situations.
“Blessed are the peacemakers”.
Therefore, the primary fruit of love is not best seen in someone who only knows God loves her, but in a person who is able to bring love to unlovely, bitter people and situations.
That’s why Jesus said of those who receive His Holy Spirit, “Out of their bellies shall flow rivers of living water”. No better picture exists of a healer.
A river of living water flowing out of the bottom of Lake Michigan has little impact. But a river in the desert gives life where before, no life was possible.
That is why being called as a healer is no light matter.
It is a call to be accepted with gravity.
It is a call to the hot, dry places of the world.
But it is a high call.
It is Christ’s description of Himself.
“He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.”
GMC
[Written for my good friend Linda Johnson, many years ago.]
George Caywood 