“Your fruit is found in Me” (Hos 14:8).
At the end of Hosea’s prophecy, this ray of hope shines on beleaguered Israel. From the opening command in Genesis, “Be fruitful,” to the scene in the Jerusalem Above, where a tree grows “which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month” (Rev 22:2), God shows His determination to grow sweet fruit.
But if we are going to share in the joy of this harvest, we must, like Judah’s remnant, learn the secret: “Take root downward, and bear fruit upward” (Isa 37:31). “That you, being rooted and grounded in love…” (Eph 3:17). “Rooted and built up in Him…” (Col 2:7).
To the Galatians who had been fooled into thinking that success came through law-keeping, Paul describes the luscious “fruit of the Spirit” and then ironically adds, “Against such there is no law” (Gal 5:23). Life drawn from Christ, not law, produces this fruit. Are we ready today to pray, “Lord, prune me, purge me, but please make me fruitful with the sweetness of Christ!”