Bring Forth Spiritual Fruits

                                                                                    Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit (Jn.15, 8)

God can be glorified not only in martyrdom and missionary zeal, but that “we bear much fruit”. God is especially glorified in abundance of spiritual fruits. We won’t have a higher goal; therefore let us reach for it with our prayers and all of desires of our soul. The fruits, that are expected from us, are stated in Galatians 5, 22: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”. What a treasure! Do I posses even one of them? When year after year, the Lord of the vineyard, comes to  search for fruit on my branches, does He ever find any?

Therefore, the stronger our faith is, the stronger is our love; the more joy and peace we have, the more longsuffering we are; if we are  gentle with our neighbors, then our Heavenly Father is glorified within us.

Spiritual fruit is being brought only by a plant that He planted and which abides in Him. “He that abideth in Me, and I in him; the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing” (Jn.15, 5)

In a wondrous vision of the prophet Ezekiel about a field, covered with dead and dry bones, the whole mankind is compared with them and it is said that the reason for that is that they broke off the root, started to get dry and died at the end. Soul, which does not have a divine root, can not but to dry out and no fruit can be expected off of it. “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being“ (Acts 17, 28). This is the only and necessary condition to be able to bring forth a fruit.

(Translated by Tatiana Rozzell from “Every Day is a Gift from God. Diaries of an Orthodox Priest”, author unknown)