ALAN MEISTER'S PEACHY THOUGHTS

“By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” (John 15:8  NEW KING JAMES VERSION)
“ ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’  says the Lord.  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than Your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”  (Isaiah 55:8-9  NEW KING JAMES  VERSION)

At the “John 17:23 Pastors’ Small Group” that I attended yesterday morning, Alan Meister (minister, and counselor at The Bridge House) shared a powerful devotional about what it means to spiritually bear fruit.  Picture in your mind two peach trees.  Each peach tree has one peach growing on it.  The peach on the first tree is huge and beautiful.  The peach on the second tree is rather small, shriveled, and has a number of holes in it from where worms have been eating it.  Which tree would YOU judge has good fruit?

Most of us would choose the FIRST tree.  Yet, once the first tree’s beautiful peach is eaten and the pit thrown in a trash can someplace, that’s the end of that.  The small, shriveled peach, would ultimately fall on the ground and maybe roll around on the hilly, grassy soil.  Ultimately, it’s pit would find its way into the soft soil.  Years later a healthy peach tree bearing many peaches has grown from the one small, shriveled peach.

Which tree had the better fruit?  We have no right as Christians to think that our fruit as individuals is weak and insignificant, NOR do we have the right to think of our church’s fruit as weak and insignificant.  We are called to be faithful, to obey God, to give our all to God and for God, and to leave the rest to God.

ISN’T THAT GOOD STUFF?  Thank you, Alan!