Bearing Spiritual Fruit: Moving from Lazy to Diligent

In my quiet time recently, I came across some verses that inspired me to move from laziness to diligence in my walk with God.

Proverbs 19 describes a lazy person unwilling to even feed himself, though food is right in front of him. This paints a pitiful picture of wasted potential - the resources are there, but little effort made to utilize them. I wondered, do I treat spiritual nourishment the same way? Too often I expect to be fed from the Word without doing my part through study or meditation.

Revelation 3 also stood out. Jesus critiques the church at Sardis for having "imperfect" works. The original language implies their works lacked completeness, not sinless perfection. Though saved, they weren't spiritually thriving or bearing full kingdom fruit.

Between lazy Christians unmotivated to grow, and busy but unfocused Christians not accomplishing what matters most, both these passages diagnose a problem I want to avoid. I long for my life and ministry to bear all the good fruit Christ intended - not just barely squeezing by with the minimum.

What about you? Are you continuously fed but not sharing that bread of life with others? Are you active in church programs but missing what God specifically crafted you to do? Let's go before the Lord and ask Him to develop diligence and spiritual fruitfulness in us. Our works matter. His kingdom work through us matters. Let's not settle for a mediocre, lazy faith - by God's grace, our works can be complete and our lives can bear fruit that remains.