Faith without fruit is like clouds that never rain.
I often wonder how it is that great amounts of rain can fall from the clouds. Well, I have learned that clouds are actually made of water droplets. Within a cloud, water droplets stick onto one another, causing the droplets to grow. When these water droplets get too heavy to stay suspended in the cloud, they fall to earth as rain.
So, clouds carry the water that ultimately is needed to sustain all life here on earth. No clouds – no rain. No rain – no grass or trees or even you or me. We need the clouds for the good that they bring to us. – their rain.
We are warned not to be people of faith who produce no fruit of our faith. In the book of Jude, 1:12-13 it says this. “These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds, late autumn trees without fruit.”
For all the good we want to do in life, our good is really not much good at all if it is not the product of our faith. Jude is warning the people about others who talked about doing the good God wants but their lives did not produce the fruit of good.
A cloud that is swept around by the wind doesn’t have a chance to catch and then deposit the rain that should be its fruit. Clouds like this are mostly dark times in our lives. Empty clouds may be beautiful, but they are of little value to us unless they produce rain.
Many of us are this way. Our own faith is swept about by the things we face daily. So, we produce little fruit. And the fruit we do produce is not heavy enough to cause our faith to drop its fruit wherever we are. We are clouds with rain that never falls. What good then is the good we do when it is produced through our efforts but not produced by our faith?
For all their good, people like this are believers with faith that does not work. They are believers with faith that does not produce. They are clouds with water that never falls. They are waves without an ocean to catch them. They are wandering stars that do not know their place in the sky.
So, what should we do to build up faith that produces fruit? Let’s be like those drops of rain. A single raindrop will never be heavy enough to break through the cloud and fall to earth. Raindrops must bind together to become heavy enough to break free of the clouds and fall.
A single faith encounter is never enough to produce the fruit of faith. Live such that you look for daily encounters of faith. Faith that is strong is faith that can wait for the Lord to do what you cannot do with what you have. Look for times when you resist acting in your strengths as you wait for the strength of faith. Faith looks like failure being changed to success.
Learn to resist trying to do for others what you have not learned to do for yourself. This produces faith that is tested. Tested faith will stick together and be strengthened. The stronger the faith the faster it will fall from you to others.
If your faith does not produce fruit that falls, it will eventually dry up and die. Remember, doing what you think is good is the enemy of faith that produces good as its fruit. For all the good you want to do, do not let your good cause others to wonder about your faith.
If your life is not heavy with faith, you will not be able to produce the fruit of the faith that should fall from you to the earth around you to glorify God. Don’t let weak or no faith make you like a voice without words our sounds.
Do not have faith with fruit that does not fall.
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