Ways the Evil One will try to keep you from being a fruitful Christian:
1) fill you with worries
2) distract you with riches
3) distract you with pleasures of the world
4) encourage you to give up easily at the first sign of trouble
5) encourage you do doubt God and doubt the truth of God’s teachings
6) choke you with “weeds” (aka something “useless, detrimental, or worthless”)
7) leave you somewhere “rocky” and unforgiving
8) starve you of the water you need to survive (being washed in water is symbolic of repentance in Mat3:11, so this might mean you are being kept from repentance or don’t know you need to repent)
9) be eaten alive (revelation 19:21) – interesting parallel: birds gorging themselves on flesh, and here birds eating living seed)
To Produce Good Fruit:
1) Have a good, honest heart
2) Obey God
3) Be patient and let your fruit have time to ripen
4) See and understand, don’t just look and listen
5) let your light shine before mankind (light being symbolic of God’s presence)
and the fire in my soul is back! I feel that radiance bursting through as the truth becomes evermore clear. Just as it says but a couple verses later, “Everything that is hidden will become clear”…”so make good use of what you have”