You and I...are incapable of producing the fruit that God is looking to see manifest in our lives. I don’t care how much you desire it, pray for it, and then do your best to ‘bear it’... trying harder to do better will only lead to more spiritual frustration, discouragement, and eventual failure.

And if you don’t ‘toss in the towel’ by giving up completely as you turn your back on ‘God, religion, and faith’ (John 6:66) because of your constant failure to ‘measure up’, you will probably at least ‘hang around’ and settle for a widely accepted ‘form of godliness...devoid of any power to transform your life’. (2 Tim. 3:1-5). You might even be proficient at studying God’s word, teaching great lessons in Sunday School class...while ‘always learning yet never coming to the knowledge of the truth’ (7). I would submit to you in humility and in love that the reason for this is a possible failure to truly ‘come to Jesus’ with all your heart so that you might experience the true life He came to offer us. (John 5:39-40; 10:10)

Not only am I speaking here with plenty of scripture to support this lesson, I also share from my heart...my personal experiences. I just can’t believe it took me this long to ‘figure out’. But...better late than never, I suppose...as the saying goes.

What I am sharing today may be a ‘review’ for anyone who has been reading here for a while, but even God made it a habit to repeat Himself for our benefit.

We’ve been talking about the vital need to abide in Jesus in order to see lasting fruit produced in our lives. That is what He is looking for (Luke 13:6-9). Fruit really does matter and we are living in the time (Rom. 1:18) where the ‘reapers’ are out ‘gathering up’ fruitless branches, just like they did in the parable of the wheat and tares that we read about in Matt. 13; 3:10, and John 15:6. Apart from Him...we can do nothing. It is ONLY...by ‘His grace’...that we can be ‘saved from the wrath of God...not of ourselves...lest any man should boast’. (Eph.2:7-10; Rom. 5:9; Titus 2:11-14)

I think the lesson we fail to teach and stress is that abiding begins with total surrender to His lordship. Why call Him ‘Lord’ if we are not going to do what He says? (Luke 6:46). Too many have been led astray believing they can ‘sign on’ to have Jesus as their ‘Savior’... but surrendering to His lordship is ‘optional’. This...is why His people continue... to be ‘destroyed for a lack of knowledge’. (Hosea 4:6)

We stress the benefit of being ‘touched by Jesus’ without driving home the point that if they continue to sin...something ‘worse’ will happen to them. (John 5:14; Gal. 6:7-8; Rom. 8:13) We don’t want to make folks feel ‘uncomfortable’...as if their approval was more important to us than God’s approval; but...that can happen (John 12:43)

To abide in Jesus...means we surrender to His leading by His Spirit, which is the only way we can become ‘children of God’ as we are conformed to His image. (John 1:12;10:27; Rom. 8:14,29). And IF...we do indeed follow...He will lead us to put to death all those ‘deeds of the flesh nature’ that causes us to sin (Rom. 8:13). And IF...we are walking in the Spirit, we will no longer fulfill those fleshly lusts and desires since we have put that nature to death (Gal. 5:16, 24). This is what it means to ‘take up our cross’...and follow Him ‘daily’ as we ‘die to self’. How else can fruit even be produced? (John 12:24)

When he allows those tests and trials to come our way, He does so that He might expose what is in our hearts that we are blinded to (Jer.17:9-10; 1 John 1:8; James 1:2-4). Then, when we see what comes from the abundance of our hearts, we confess and then ‘repent/turn’ from that. And here’s the ‘kicker’: All we can do is stand in those trials and ‘die’ to that sin temptation as we ‘resist the devil’. That’s it. You stand in the fire and ‘suffer in the flesh’ for just a little while, depending solely upon His grace to give you help in your time of need, which He is more than happy and willing to do (Heb. 2:18; 4:15-16; 1 Pet 5:9-10) It is ‘only by His grace’ that empowers us to do this very thing. (Titus 2:11-14) This is how we 'put to death' that carnal nature. Notice I did not say 'dial down, put on a leash, or in a box'; I said 'put to death'.

This is what Peter exhorts us to do...to have the ‘same mind as Christ who suffered for us...so that after we have suffered in the flesh...we cease from sin so that we can do the will of God’ (1 Pet. 4:1-2). And let us not forget that it is not those who ‘say Lord, Lord that will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of the Father who is in heaven’. (Matt. 7:21)