{"id":877,"date":"2019-06-05T17:30:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T23:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=877"},"modified":"2019-06-04T11:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-04T17:20:00","slug":"psalm-1-fruit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=877","title":{"rendered":"Psalm 1: Fruit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\" class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">[To follow <strong><em>The Ewellogy<\/em><\/strong>, please click on <strong><em>Leave a Comment<\/em><\/strong> above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: <strong><em>Notify me of new posts by email<\/em><\/strong>. If your comment is, &#8220;Notify me,&#8221; it won&#8217;t post publicly. If you don&#8217;t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> I\u2019ve been meditating in the first three verses of Psalm 1 (NIV):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither\u2014whatever they do prospers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Very simply, it breaks down into:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>What blessed people don\u2019t do (verse 1)<\/li><li>What blessed people do (verse 2)<\/li><li>The result (verse 3)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, let\u2019s consider the result of Abiding NOT and Abiding IN: fruit!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What is fruit? I like what Mark Greene, a colleague of <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=205\">Neil Hudson<\/a>, author of <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Imagine-Church-Releasing-Whole-life-Disciples\/dp\/184474566X\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Imagine+Church&amp;qid=1559667338&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1\">Imagine Church<\/a>, that I refer to occasionally, has done. In <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Fruitfulness-Frontline-Making-Difference-Where\/dp\/1783591250\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3KAFLHV140GYU&amp;keywords=fruitfulness+on+the+frontline&amp;qid=1559667785&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=Fruitfulness+on+%2Caps%2C183&amp;sr=8-1\">Fruitfulness on the Frontlines<\/a>, he defined six types of fruitfulness. And before I list them, let me hasten to say, these are not six things to add to an already long list of things we think we\u2019re supposed to do! They are better looked at as \u201cHow is God using me today?\u201d Here\u2019s the list:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Modeling godly character<\/li><li>Making good work<\/li><li>Ministering grace and love<\/li><li>Molding culture<\/li><li>Mouthpiece for truth and justice<\/li><li>Messenger of the gospel<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Normally, when we think \u201cfruit,\u201d we think of the first and last items on the list: modeling godly character is God\u2019s developing in us the fruit of the Spirit as defined best in Galatians 5:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. (Galatians 5.22, 23, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The last one, Messenger of the Gospel, is the fruit of people following Jesus because of our influence as seen in John 15.16:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If this were just fruit of the Spirit, we wouldn\u2019t have to go anywhere to do it!<br>I\u2019ve written briefly about these six characteristics of fruit-bearing <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=409\">before<\/a>, but a review is always good!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world\u2014just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God\u2019s grace. (Colossians 1.6, NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been meditating in the first three verses of Psalm 1 (NIV): 1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers,2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=877\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Psalm 1: Fruit<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-e9","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}