Fruit of the Spirit

  Pastor Fred preached the most famous passage from Galatians which is Galatians 5:22-26. This section is known as the Fruits of the Spirit passage. It’s one of the few Bible verses that I remember from kids camp because it was put into a song. Its amazing how often we remember things that are put to a popular song or jingle 

 One of the things that we have to wrestle with is are we dominated by our feelings or by Gods fruit. There isn’t anything wrong with emotions, but when we are ruled by them it’s not good. Emotions can change quicker than the weather does when the wind switches off of Lake Superior on a nice summer day. Gods fruit is filled with holiness and not only does it look at the long term, unlike our emotions, but it is Gods character dwelling inside of us. So are we seeking to run our lives through how we feel or by Gods character?

  Even though God makes the fruit grow, we still have to do our part. Anyone who has a green thumb knows that in order to harvest fruit and veggies from the garden, they need to till the land, pull weeds, actually planting the seeds and keeping the varmints from eating the garden. So are we doing the work to allow God to grow those seeds. Whether it is spending time in Gods Word, prayer and fellowship with other believers. The important part is being obedient to what we know what God has called us to do. Here is the thing about the Fruit of the Spirit, it doesn’t grow overnight, and takes patience and hard work. The Fruits will become evident when we have self control or peace, or any other of the Fruits grow. Often other people see that growth in us before we do. It’s hard to see the growth when we are in the middle of it. 

  One of the things that I was reminded of is that love and self control book ends the Fruit of the Spirits. We can’t have such things as peace, patience or humility if we don’t have Gods love and grace permeating through our lives. In essence love is what make those things real and is what drives those characteristics in our lives. Self control is what I would call the applicator of said Fruits. As people we may be naturally gifted with at least one of the Fruits, but eventually we will become unhinged and lose our peace and patience. In essence, our flesh and sinful nature take over and we worry or we have an epic meltdown. Toddlers in Wal Mart aren’t the only ones who like to kick, scream and make a scene. Self control is putting away things that will get us in trouble and to embrace and live in the freedom of boundaries. In essence, they are called Fruits of the Spirit because we can not produce them and sustain them on our own. They come from God and only grow and multiply when we are obedient to Him. 

 To close out, the Apostle Paul talks a lot about the freedom that God provides vs the deeds of the flesh and the destruction that will follow. A reminder that our actions do have consequences, both that are good and also ones that are disastrous. So do we live in the freedom of God, which allows these Fruits to grow and the world to be attracted to them, or do we live an unhinged life by doing what we want to do and suffering the pain and consequences of said choices?  So do we want to love those who are difficult to love, have patience when we don’t know what’s next or to have peace when everything is falling apart? This is when we submit everything to God and tell our flesh and Sinatra we can not do things my way.