Are you producing produce? According to John 15:16-17, this is exactly what Jesus has chosen us to do: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

When we engage in the practice of producing produce, we will be living a relationship of love. This Christ-like kinship is an expression of the first and greatest commandment. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 22: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.”

To be effective produce producers, we need to have the right look:

• We need to LOOK UP to God in expressions of love and worship.
• We need to LOOK IN to see if we are living the disciplined life of a “chosen” child of God.
• We need to LOOK OUT to share the fruit of the Spirit with the people we encounter each day of our lives.

One more LOOK is needed, and it is a fresh peek at a principle in John 15: “ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

What produce are you producing?