Fruit Inventory

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Galatians 5:22, 23

Reading over these verses, did you see anything that’s already fruitful on your personal spiritual fruit tree? Are your 'boughs' overflowing with any of the attributes in those verses?

Now, it’s one thing to show love from time to time. It’s nice to display faith and meekness when you remember. However, are any of these qualities second nature to you? Do they flow out of you without a second thought? Or, do you find yourself having to will yourself to show a little temperance? Or does the thought of longsuffering make you shudder?

Bearing fruit is a process of reproduction. Whatever we are, we reproduce. When we become more like the Spirit, our fruit will reflect His presence in our lives. Yep, I’m saying it. The fruit your bear is a direct indicator of your growth in God. So if you have a lot of junk growing on your tree, you are definitely not allowing the Spirit to have His full way in your life.

Often, we don’t bear fruit. We just pick up fruitful traits when they are convenient or suit our needs and then promptly set them back down when we want things our way. We don’t take the time to dig deeply into God’s word and allow it to change our hearts. We’ll read a verse or chapter here and there, nod our heads in agreement, think that we should do better, and move on down the same path. We don’t allow the insight to effect change.

There’s a verse in the Bible that states that whatever a man thinks in his heart is what he is. (Proverbs 23:7a) What do you think about? What does your mind meditate on? Is it God’s goodness and His Word? Or are you thinking about how you can do more of what you want to do? Are you thinking about how to please God in your walk with Him? Or are you trying to figure out how to make your life more enjoyable for yourself?

We call ourselves the children of God, but how many of us are bringing pride to the family name? Do we reflect the Spirit of God in our daily lives? Or does our lack of spiritual fruit place us in another orchard all together?

Verse of the Day: Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. John 15:18