"When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit."

Yesterday we saw that God gave the tenants everything they needed. The vineyard was equipped, the tools were in place, and the purpose was clear. But today we come to a moment in the story that shifts everything, because the season for fruit drew near and the master sent his servants to collect.

And you know what...He didn't come to check on the vineyard. He came to get his fruit. Not the tenants' fruit. His fruit. The text says it plainly... "to get his fruit." That possessive word matters more than we realize.

So what I'm seeing is there's a difference between producing and rendering, and if we don't understand that difference, we will misunderstand our entire relationship with the vineyard.

Producing is what God does through you. That's a calling He gives you, an anointing in a skill, a profession, an ability, an income, a relationship, or the abundance of time. Rendering is what you do with what God produced. Let me say that again because it matters. Producing is what God does through you. Rendering is what you have accomplished with the things that God has produced in you.

Here's what I see, we can be incredible producers and still be unfaithful renderers. The tenants in this parable were not lazy. They worked the vineyard. They tended the vines. They harvested the grapes. They were producing. But when the master came looking for his portion, they had nothing to give because they had consumed everything for themselves.

And that's where it gets uncomfortable for people like you and me who love the Lord and work hard in our faith. Because the issue was never about effort. It was about direction. They pointed the fruit inward instead of upward. They made the vineyard about their comfort, their security, their legacy, instead of honoring the one who gave it to them.

Just think about it for a minute..

• Do you seek a successful marriage so you can find comfort in it, or so it can be an instrument that ministers to others? 
• Do you seek a great job to afford the comforts of life, or are you looking for ways to multiply His abundance? 
• Do you seek God so that you might have a sure faith to hold on to, or are you seeking in order to pass on all that is found?

Notice..
Ownership says, "This vineyard is mine."
Stewardship says, "This vineyard is His, but I get to work in it."
And the distance between those two statements is the distance between a producer and a renderer.

When we stop and just make the thing that God has produced in us about ourselves and fail to produce the fruit those things bring for His glory, we have asserted ownership over the vineyard instead of operating as stewards of it.

Tomorrow we are going to look at what happens when fruit becomes the problem, because these tenants didn't just fail to render. They fought to keep what was never theirs.

Identify one thing God has produced in you a skill, a relationship, a resource, or an area of growth. Find one specific way to render it back to Him today by using it to bless someone else. Don't wait for the perfect moment. Just render it.