Matthew 21:19<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, \u2018Let no fruit grow on you ever again.\u2019 Immediately the fig tree withered away.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The result of fruitlessness is a withering life. God made us to bear fruits that bring Him joy, and He has given everything we need to produce fruits. If we do not bear fruit, it is not because of the lack of resources to bear fruit, but it\u2019s more likely from the lack of applying God\u2019s principles to our lives. God is not wicked, and He will not demand fruit where He has not already prepared the ground for fruit bearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we choose not to bear fruit, the effect is that we lose our relevance in the grand scheme of God; and therefore do not need further resources. The justification for more release of God\u2019s resources to our lives is our fruitfulness, and our barrenness automatically signals our irrelevance. It\u2019s a strange connection because we need resources to be fruitful, yet when we do not utilize the already provided resources for heaven-approved fruitful practices, we will be denied any further resources, which will lead to our withering. In summary, we must seek earnestly to use all of God\u2019s graces to produce God-honoring fruits; otherwise, we may just be considered irrelevant in God\u2019s purposes for our generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cO God, have mercy on me and grant me the focus and skill to utilize Your grace to produce the types of fruits that please Your heart. This I ask in Jesus name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 21:19 \u201cAnd seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, \u2018Let no fruit grow on you ever again.\u2019 Immediately the fig tree withered away.\u201d The result of fruitlessness is a withering life. God made us to bear fruits that bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-matthew"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Reflections-from-Matthew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4253,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}