Good Morning Friends!
Well I don't know about you, but I am glad today is Friday! I hope everyone is doing well and has had a good week. I have had a very busy week and I look forward to a day to rest. This morning I wanted to write about the kind of fruit we are supposed to be bearing as believers in Christ. A tree has always been a fascinating plant to me. How can an oak tree become a giant from a little tiny seed, I will never know. The Lord began showing me the different fruits that we are to bear and also what happens when we aren't bearing the right fruit. If you want to find out more, please keep reading! Also I hope you have your cup of coffee or tea, whichever you prefer.
Now picture this, you are in the garden department at the store, you are walking around looking at all the plants and you come across the fruit trees. There are all different kinds, lemon, apple, peach, plum, maybe even an orange tree. So you pick one out and bring it home. You follow all the instructions on the tag and you find a spot to plant it, water it, and wait. It takes maybe a year or two before you finally see a bloom. Oh there's hope, you know that a bloom leads to fruit finally growing on the tree. The bloom turns into what looks like fruit, so you go out to pick it and try the long desired fruit that you have been wanting to eat. Only to find out that it's not the right kind of fruit growing on the tree. What? At the store, you picked out an apple tree and your apple tree is growing peaches. That's not right, what happened? I know I picked out an apple tree, the tag said apple tree so why is it growing peaches? So you go in the house to call the 800 number to find out what happened and the person on the other end says it could be a simple mistake at the wrong label on the tree, but not to worry, they can reimburse your purchase. You say that's okay, you just wanted to find out what was the problem.
Now you may be saying what does this story have to do with me bearing fruit? That's a good question and the answer is, as a believer in Christ, there are types of fruit that we are supposed to be bearing such as patience, goodness, kindness, self- control, we can find these fruits in Galatians chapter 5 verses 22 through 23. Now say you are having a rough day and someone is being rude to you at work and you snap at that person and you hear them say, "I thought he or she was a Christian?" How many times have we heard this before? I will raise my hand and say yes, several times. We all have bad days where our attitude may not be right or we're feeling down and out, or maybe we don't want to be around anyone. I understand because we are still human, we are not perfect, even though we are following Jesus doesn't mean we won't have bad days. That's why it says in His word, "The righteous man falls seven times and gets back up." Proverbs 24:16 He also says that, "we fall short daily." Romans 3:23 So you see God knows that we have our off days, but think about it, it takes time to bear fruit. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior of our life and ask Him to come live inside of us, He places the fruits of the Spirit within us that when the time comes, we will bear His fruit.
As I have said before, Jesus is our example, He came to show us the way in which we are to walk. We are to walk in Him which means we are to think like Him, talk like Him, and act like Him. I am to pray according to His will and word. I am to spend time with Him, to thank Him, and also I am called to help others with the leading of the Holy Spirit. I am reminding of the story of Lazarus, Jesus was told that Lazarus was dead and in John chapter 11 verse 35, it says that He wept. Now Jesus was sad at the passing away of His friend, but do you know what Jesus did after He finished crying? He goes after two days to raise Lazarus from the dead. You see Jesus received some bad news and He cried about it and I'm sure He spent time with God, but He got up and went to Lazarus to call him out of the tomb. His circumstances didn't stop Him from doing what He was called to do. He walked this earth and bore the fruit of the Spirit and He is calling us to do the same.
So my friends, what kind of fruits have we been bearing lately? Is it the fruit of the Spirit or is the fruit of this world? The fruit of this world is rotten fruit such as: jealously, hatred, strife, contention, anger, gossip, greed, selfishness, lust, etc. I could go on and on, but you get the point, it is truly rotten fruit and it's not any good for the kingdom of God. Friends, He wants us to bear His fruit in order to make a difference in this world. The problem in this world today is not political, not moral, not about race or color, or any other worldly thing, it's spiritual. We need God in our lives and without Him, there is no life, all there is death. Sin paves the road to death. So if you need to make things right before God, I encourage you to do so today at this very moment because you are not guaranteed another moment or another day. My friends, I hope this post encourages you and blesses you today. I pray that the Lord would continue to bless you and keep you! Until next time!
* There may be a few more posts coming on this topic soon so be looking for those!
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