After my most recent blog (May 3) I thought I would have the opportunity to continue on the theme, THE DANGER OF “GOOD” the following day. As you can see, it didn’t happen, which is an indication of what kind of week I had. So, here we are again on May 9. To briefly review the previous post, I wrote about when things are “good” we make a choice how we’re going to react and respond. Unfortunately, some people use the gift of sight to become negative and critical. Personally I’ve never seen negative and critical people accomplishing much in their lives. They’re skilled at pointing out the flaws and failures of others, but there’s little fruit being produced through their life.
Today I want to write about how we can become a part of seeing something which is good begin the move towards greatness. It’s not as hard as you might think. As I previously wrote, when things are “good” but not “great” it means there’s room for improvement. One of the tendencies we have to resist is to say, “It’s good enough” and settle for the status quo. My intuition tells me this is the key factor, or at the very least connected to the factor, between someone who sees “fruit” in their life and the person who sees “much fruit.” (John 15:5,8) If we believe the words of Jesus in John 15, the potential of “much fruit” is available to every one of us and is actually the will of the Father.
To begin to move from “fruit” to “much fruit” we have to focus on the areas which need improvement. I am hoping this isn’t too difficult for you to identify specific areas of focus, when I am speaking in such broad terms. When go through this identification process, one of the things which I believe does happen is, we make the mistake of concentrating on things we don’t do well or things we wished we could do. Track with me here because this next point is important. If this where we give our time and attention the result is we develop more areas in our life where things are “good.” We may see progress to the level we begin to see fruit in this newly developed area of focus, but it’s doubtful it will be the factor which will elevate your overall fruit production to the level of “much fruit.”
In most instances, to move from “fruit” to “much fruit”, I think we need to identify those things in our life where we excel and make improvements in those areas. You will make your greatest contributions in your relationships, church, school, place of employment, when you’re maximizing your God-given gifts. You never want the things you don’t do well to be a liability, but it’s going to be the things you do well and are striving to do even better, which will cause you to be most fruitful.
To directly apply the key concepts of today’s blog to the context of a local church, a church is most productive when each person is committed to developing the gifts God has placed within them and continuing to enhance those gifts. When people settle for the status quo, or possess the attitude: “It’s good enough to get by”, it not only prevents an individual from seeing “much fruit” but it hurts the whole church body.
I heard Pastor Rick Warren say one time, “What you are is God’s gift to you. What you do with your life is your gift to God.” When I think of my life as a “gift to God”, it’s humbling. I know the Lord has given me abilities and I want to focus on those areas so I can see “much fruit” in my future.
“God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well.” Romans 12:6 NLT
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