The Deep Roots That Yield Delightful Fruit

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified.
1 Thessalonians 4:3

One teenage boy straightens his room every day without being asked. Another straightens his only after endless appeals from his parents. Either way, the result is a clean room. But only one is the result of a right attitude.

Abraham Kuyper points out the proper balance between a heart that wills and hands that work in the Christian life.

WALK WITH ABRAHAM KUYPER
“The difference between sanctification and good works should be well understood.

“Many confuse the two and believe that sanctification means to lead an honorable and virtuous life; and, since this is equal to good works, sanctification—without which no one shall see God—is made to consist in the diligent effort to do good works.

“Instead, sanctification is God’s work in us in which he gives us a holy disposition, inwardly filling us with delight in his law and repugnance to sin. But good works are acts of mankind, which spring from this holy disposition. Hence sanctification is the source of good works.

“Sanctification is a work of God. It works internally, imparts something to the believer, and roots him like a tree. Good works are of men, are external, and are the fruit produced by a tree that is rooted. To confuse the two leads people astray.”

WALK CLOSER TO GOD
It’s impossible for a tree to produce fruit without first being planted and nurtured. Only then can the nourishment rise to bring forth fruit.

Sanctification and good works have a cause-effect relationship. God, in sanctifying you, gives you the capacity to bear spiritual fruit that is pleasing to him—fruit in abundance, fruit in season and out, fruit that is rooted in trusting him.

Read about it, thank God for it, then let your roots go down deep into the one who can make your life a source of fruit to his glory.