Produce Good Fruit

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

 PRODUCE GOOD FRUIT

Luke 3:7-9

7 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

NIV

We are going to see next some questions from people, tax collectors, and soldiers, and answers from John, but first we need to deal with this general accusation of John. Who are the brood of vipers? According to Matthew’s account these were the Pharisees and Saducess that came to see what John was doing. They were checking up on him to find out if he was acting outside the law. However, John accused them of being vipers, a very poisonous snake, inditing them of poisoning the minds and hearts of people with their insistence that righteousness comes through the law. However, John told them to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Being a descendant of Abraham is not about keeping the law, but about living by faith. Why did the Pharisees and Saducess think that having Abraham as their father meant anything other than finding righteousness through faith? Abraham was before the Mosaic law that was given, and that law was to show the people they could not keep it, therefore, they could only find righteousness through repentance and simply have faith in God. God has raised up stones, us Gentiles to be the children of Abraham, people of faith. Still, we are expected to produce good fruit. As we now know because of all we know about Jesus, and having accepted Jesus through repentance, that is changing the way we think, and accepting the indwelling of the Spirit, we know He is the one who produces that good fruit in us. They knew through the prophets that the Messiah would be the only way to achieve freedom. Although they were looking for freedom from the oppression of the Romans. It is interesting that Jesus is the only way that we can achieve freedom from the oppression of Satan and the dark forces of this world. In a true sense we are the children of Abraham because our faith in Jesus is credited to us as righteousness. In addition, our faith has allowed the Spirit to produce that good fruit in us, with the first three being, love, joy and peace. It is interesting that peace means we have tranquility within our soul, because we are assured of our salvation and thus, we fear nothing from God, and are content with our life whatsoever kind that is. In other words, we do not have to fear that axe that is at the root of the tree, because we bear the good fruit of the Spirit.