Fruit = More Fruit

This past month we have spent a lot of time talking about fruit. Both on Wednesday night, in small group, and on Sunday morning one could hear talk of Galatians 5:22 and it's implications for our life.
One thought that has been brewing with me relates to a question I asked you guys on wednesday night. It was "What is the point of fruit at all?" the answers were such as "to be eaten", and "to make trees pretty" honestly pretty good answers considering none of us think like farmers. But if you ever by chance wanted to have a longterm, thriving apple tree grove, then you would know and even count on the purpose of fruit: to make MORE fruit.
When it comes to God's relentless passion to produce the fruit of the spirit in our lives, it can get tedious, arduous, and just annoying as God puts us in situations requiring us to give our patience, self-control, or kindness a work out. It is easy to sometimes throw up our hands and yell out "What's the freaking point!?". "Why can't I just live this life as a perfectly nice treat, die, and go to heaven; without all this painful work making my life full of fruit." it can be be so tough that we even go in some ironic directions. God could produce self-control in our lives but we become less kind. We get more faithful but lose our patience.
The key is in the purpose. Fruit exists to reproduce. That's the whole point. God doesn't put so much work into producing fruit in our live, just make us "nicer to look at" or "sweet and delicious". It is because He is so passionately in love with those neighbors of our who get on our nerves, that he grows fruit in us hoping to drop seeds onto those nearby. Does it ever cross our minds that our patience could be another's salvation. That the goodness in our lives could be the closest thing our neighbors getting to meeting God. Our joy could intersect with the fertile ground in others to cause them to start asking questions.
The scary thing is it goes both ways proverbs says in chapter 11, verse 30, in The Message.

"A good life is a fruit-bearing tree;
a violent life destroys souls."

That implies to me that not only does a life void of fruit NOT reach others, it is actually DANGEROUSLY HARMFUL to Gods purpose of salvation in the lives of our neighbors. A life of claiming to follow Christ and not having any fruit to prove it. Just shows others that Christians are full of crap. Not doing what they say they do. Why would anyone want to be apart of something that pointless looking. Think about would you rather take a big bite out of a fresh apple, or a dry, rotting tree branch?
Remember Everything is Spiritual, everything is effectual, everything is more connected with the world around us than we realize.
Like so many things about Christianity, it is rarely just about us. There is a much bigger plan. God isn't just growing a apple tree, but an entire orchard.

So let's grow. Shall we?