Be Fruitful!

Be Fruitful!

By Apostle Felix

1  Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. 

Isaiah 54: 1

This chapter immediately follows Isaiah 53, which prophetically addresses the profound suffering of the coming Messiah. Together, these two chapters beautifully illustrate God’s kindness toward His people, portraying Him as a faithful husband. Throughout history, God has used Israel to demonstrate His enduring love and mercy to the world; despite the nation’s repeated rebellion, He continually forgave and restored them. Isaiah 53 specifically describes Jesus as the suffering servant—despised, rejected, and intimately acquainted with grief. Though He bore humanity’s collective griefs and sorrows, onlookers mistakenly viewed Him as one who was being punished by God for His own wrongdoings. In reality, He took our place, bearing our sins upon Himself so that we could be completely forgiven.

3  He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

Isaiah 53: 3 – 6

Isaiah 54 outlines the powerful restoration, redemption, blessings, and expansion that flow directly from the redemptive work of Christ. Because of His sacrifice, those who were once rejected now find complete acceptance in Him, and spiritual barrenness is transformed into supernatural fruitfulness. This prophecy does not refer to biological children, but rather to believers becoming highly reproductive and fruitful toward God. As Jesus explicitly warned in the Gospels, it is entirely impossible to bear spiritual fruit apart from His redemptive work; true fruitfulness only comes by abiding in Him.

4  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. 

John 15: 4, 5

Bearing fruit is God’s ultimate desire for us, and He longs for us to bear much fruit because it brings glory to His name. This has been His intent from the very beginning. God originally designed mankind to be fruitful in every arena of life, placing man in a garden with the mandate to multiply its beauty across the entire earth. Tragically, through disobedience, humanity was expelled from the garden and failed terribly at that original assignment. But Jesus came to restore the fruitfulness we had lost. In our fallen state, humanity was like a woman who was simultaneously husbandless and barren. Jesus stepped in, stripped away the shame of our barrenness, and empowered us to be fruitful once again.