are you bearing fruit?

The kingdom of God will be taken away from them and given to a people that will produce its fruit.Matthew 21, 43.

God is anxious that we bear fruit in our lives. We have all been entrusted with gifts from God.God wants us to cultivate trim, water and let the fruit of our talents to affect the world in which we live. God has made an investment in us.He’s empowered us. He expects results.

So many of us are satisfied with just getting by in our lives. We don’t strive for excellence.
Developing our talents means a big expenditure of time and energy. We’re lazy. On top of that, we run the risk of being rejected, misunderstood and laughed at as we develop our talents.
Perhaps it’s easier to just get by in life without causing too many waves.

Also we can claim to develop our talents but be doing so for the wrong reasons. I might have a talent for leadership but use that talents to dominate and enslave others. I might have a talent for healing but use that talent mainly to gain money. The development of talents that I’m talking about is aimed to enhancing and enriching the lives of others.

If we sincerely want to follow Christ, we can’t be satisfied with the mediocre. His call is a tireless call to strive for perfection in the use of our talents to care for the needs of others.

We can get a handle on how effective we are in cultivating our talents by looking at four different situations in our lives:

1. In evaluating the fruits of my talents, I first look at my
personal response to the development of my talents. Am I
willing to grow? Do I risk using my talents? Do I strive to
discover talents I didn’t know I had? Do I see the fruits of my
talents?

2. Are my talents affecting my family, the people with whom
I live? Is there more peace, honesty and joy in my family
because of the talents I’ve brought to fruit?

3. Are my talents affecting in a good way the lives of the people of my parish? Am I a person who attends Mass each Sunday and passes on my weekly donation? Is that the extent of the fruit of my talents? How is the parish affected by me? Is it better because of me? Are people growing because of me?

4. Jesus had a definite world vision. He didn’t restrict his mission to people who attended synagogue. He taught and ministered to lepers, sick, alienated and forgotten. He reached out to Jew and Gentile, male and female, rich and poor, holy and unholy. We must use our talents not only to affect our family and church, we should also strive to touch the lives of people outside of our comfort zone. We should allow the fruit of our talents to touch the lives of the vast majority of people who don’t go to church. We do this by allowing the fruit of our talents to be tasted by people in schools we attend, businesses where we work, and the stores where be shop. We are expected to bring the fruit of our talents to all the people who are so close to us around the world through telephone, email, radio and television.

5. We are called to feed ourselves, our family, our parish and our world with our talents. We are called by Christ to help usher in the Kingdom of God with the use of these talents.