Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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From a testimony by Uncle Joe in the late 1970’s
When Uncle Joe was a young man, he worked for a while in an orange grove in Florida. In fact, he was working there when he received the baptism of the Spirit in early 1951.
One day, while up on his ladder picking the fruit from the trees and putting it into the increasingly heavy sack that hung from his shoulder, the Lord spoke to him and said, “The seed is in the fruit.” Uncle Joe looked at the orange that he held in his hand as he stood on his ladder, and he knew that it contained the seed of that kind of fruit. That orange, and all the other oranges in the world, contained the seed of many other oranges. This is the way God created earthly plants. It is described in the first book of the Bible: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth. And so it was. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind. And God saw that it was good. ” (Gen. 1:11-12).
If we really want to “magnify the Lord” and be a light for others who need to find their way, we must yield the fruits of the Spirit, for only God’s fruit produces God’s kind of seed. And only God’s kind of seed produces God’s kind of fruit. Within the life that is lived filled with “fruits of the Spirit” is contained the invisible seed that yields more of God’s kind of fruit.
Paul said, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Gal. 5:22-23). When those things describe the life you are living, you will “bear precious seed” and produce fruit to God. And you will not even have to think about it.