Banana Tree

Luk 13:6 He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
Luk 13:7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?
Luk 13:8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
Luk 13:9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
I have a Banana Tree that my Son-N-Law gave me four years ago. I remember him and me planting it in the back yard and it grew very little. I was disappointed to say the least. The next year I replanted it and it did a little better but nothing to brag about. Then I decided when I dug it up to put away for the winter I would make the place I planted it in a compost pile. I did and last year when I planted it, man did it grow. I mean it grew from three feet to over twelve feet high. It also reproduced five other trees. I am excited about this year! I am going to give my Father-N-Law some of the five and I will at least plant three trees this year. Oh, by the way, I have expanded my compost pile so that I can plant all three trees. I am hoping for some bananas off the older one. That's what Jesus is explaining here in the book of Luke. According to Jesus, there is only one way to see if something is alive – check its fruit. I don’t know where we got this misconception, but many of us really don’t expect much to happen in our lives as Christ-followers. We “signed up” for a relationship with God. We said “yes” to Jesus, but for many of us, we expected that would be the end of the deal. We would receive forgiveness for our sins and a ticket to heaven when we die, but anything beyond that was not part of our plan. The Bible is clear: not only does Jesus want to give us the promise of heaven and spiritual blessings, He wants to get involved in our lives. He wants to plant something within us that is going to take root and begin to change the way we live, impacting the actions, decisions and character of our lives. In other words, Jesus expects to see something grow within us as a result of His presence in our lives. Jesus expects that once His Spirit has taken root in our lives, fruit will be developing and growing. Remember, things that are alive, grow! If the fruit of the Lord – traits such as love, joy and peace – are growing in your life day-by-day and year-by-year, something good is going on! If not, something is wrong. To fail to produce fruit is to fail to provide the people around you a witness to the presence of God in the world. Do you know you have huge fruit-bearing potential? You do! Once you believe this and allow God to do His gardening work in your life, slowly, but surely, you will see your life bear a steady crop of spiritual fruit. You may just need a good compost pit!