What Are We Producing?

Fifty2 Sunday’s – Listening 4 God

        In Sunday's sermon, the minister spoke about how our vocations can be an act of service to God.  The word "produce" was what I heard and that took me into the scriptures.

*~*

         Since God told Adam and Eve to be "fruitful and multiply"- it is reasonable to say that God is concerned with productivity and not just procreation.  The ease of existing in the Garden of Eden ended with the fall; Adam was told that by the sweat of his brow he would eat (Genesis 3:19) and Eve would experience pain in childbirth (Genesis 3:16).  One could say the challenges associated with living definitely increased for Adam and Eve - but it did not change the directive they had received from God.

        It would be a tendency of modern times to reduce the conversation about what constitutes being 'fruitful' to a discussion of quantity versus quality.  The successful, accomplished person and those who have accumulated the most in worldly wealth are seen as the most productive.  We associate certain characteristics and attributes with the likelihood of such achievement.  In the work world, Type A personalities when compared with Type B, are thought to be more ambitious, organized, time-oriented and presumably productive.  [Take a test if you want to know if you are Type A or B?].  While there is no escaping the fact that most of us have to work in order to live - the sum total of our lives is not our job, the accumulation of possessions or wealth.  

        In the Bible, a word search using "produce" or "productivity" - reveals numerous verses about agricultural situations as well as those that speak to the quality of a person's life and the fruit their life is producing.  Consider the following:

• Matthew 3:8 & 10: "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”  ...  "The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”  (NIV)
• Mark 4:20: "Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”  (NIV)
• John 15:2: "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”  (NIV)
• Luke 6:43: "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit." (NIV)
• Mark 8:35: "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever      loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”  (NIV)
• Matthew 16:26:"What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?  Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?”  (NIV)

        We all know this world's wealth and goods do not go with us to heaven, so if we are spinning our wheels only to produce and achieve what this world has to offer, we may be disappointed to find out it does not translate to eternity.  Therefore, the wise person will focus their life on producing "fruit that will last" (John 15:16a).