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Spiritual Fruit
by Jerry Ousley Man did I ever get a surprise! We had gone over to visit with my parents. Because they are my parents we have always been encouraged to "make ourselves at home" (within reason of course) while there. On the kitchen table was a very handsome fruit arrangement. The apples were the shiniest I had ever seen. The oranges were clean and brilliant. There were red grapes and green grapes and man did they ever look tempting. There was even a nice yellow banana or two. I eyed that bowl of fruit for some time, then casually strolled into the kitchen and made my choice a nice red apple. It already glistened in the light but as is my habit when eating an apple I tend to give it a few rubs on my shirt just to clean it up a bit more. Then, I slurped back the juices in my mouth in preparation for a big crunchy bite and proceeded to sink my teeth into it. That was the surprise. My teeth were met with a very hard apple so hard in fact that I thought I left a few teeth in it. I winced a bit but was careful not to cry out in pain for fear of giving myself away, because I had fallen for the oldest trick in the book it was a ceramic apple! I think you know the rest. We've been talking about God's fruitful forest. We are the trees in that forest and part of our duty is to bear fruit. James 3 spoke of the fruit of wisdom which we all must use. Jeremiah 17 spoke of the magnificent tree by the rivers of water that never failed to bear fruit. Today let's look at Galatians 5:22-23 which describes the fruit that God's fruitful trees should bear. It says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law." I should say not. These are the characteristics that should hang from the limbs of Christians making up God's fruitful forest. Who doesn't want to display those magnificent, spirit-watering fruit? We should be full of love not just to those who love us but to each and every individual, but we don't always, now do we? When we think of joy we think of someone who is happy all the time, but I don't think I know anyone like that, do you? Peace is a good one. We talk a lot about peace but most of the time men only want peace on their terms. How about longsuffering? That means we are patient with people. We'd like to think we have that trait, but what about the guy who just goes on and on without a breath? Sometimes we feel like we've suffered long. We want to be kind, good, faithful and gentle, but are we always? And that last one; self-control. Need I say more? In ourselves we will find it impossible to display these fruit in our lives all the time. We may be successful part of the time with a few, but all of them all the time? There comes that human guy again I just can't seem to get rid of him! If we aren't careful we may find ourselves displaying our fruit just like that bowl of ceramic fruit that sat on my mother's table. It looks perfect and appetizing. It is often downright irresistible. But one agonizing bite will reveal the truth. We don't want to be guilty of displaying artificial fruit from our tree, now do we? But if we aren't careful that is exactly what we may be doing. So what's the answer? It takes prayer, not just on Sunday but every day. It takes submitting ourselves to God each and every day and sometimes each and every minute of that day. Because of our humanity without the help of God it is an impossible task. But we can do it one by one, minute by minute, day by day, one at a time. There's a lot of elbow grease involved. There may even be times we've got to use the sledge hammer to push the old man down and back into his place. But let me tell you, the results of displaying real fruit, hanging perfectly from our branches is a reward that cannot be matched. It is worth it. Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |