The Fruit of the Spirit's Not a Coconut!
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23
The fruit of the Spirit’s not a
coconut
The fruit of the Spirit’s not a coconut
If you wanna be a coconut you might as well hear it –
You can’t be a fruit of the Spirit!
My kids grew up in
AWANA and I can’t study the fruit of the Spirit without getting this song stuck
in my head! From the beginning of my walk with Jesus, I’ve heard about the fruit
of the Spirit. For a long time, I felt stress and pressure when I heard about it
because I knew I didn’t measure up, no matter how hard I tried. Thankfully, God
granted me freedom from that, and I’d love to share it with you today too!
You see, while it is
good to be more loving, kind and patient, these are not things that we can “will”
ourselves to do. It’s not just a matter of putting your mind to it or trying
harder. I know, I tried, it didn’t work. Then, a number of years ago, I did a
study by Beth Moore called Living Beyond
Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit*. This opened my eyes to so
many things, but the most important one was that the fruit of the Spirit is
just that, His fruit, not mine. If I were to work really hard cleaning the
house, a clean house would be the fruit of my labor (and probably a few days in
bed to recover!). If I were to spend extra time working on blog posts, a lovely
set of scheduled posts all waiting for me would be my fruit. But when it comes
to kindness, goodness and faithfulness, those are fruits that only the Holy
Spirit can produce.
Do you see them in
me? I hope so! But they are not my fruits. They are not the result of my hard
work or focus. So what are they? The result of God at work in me and a direct
reflection of my relationship with Him. The more time I spend with God: in
prayer, in His Word, in serving Him, in fellowship with my brothers and sisters
in Christ, the more I look like Him. Thirty-two years ago, my husband and I
were VERY different people. Even twenty years ago, when we took a spiritual
gifts inventory, our results would come out opposite! I would score nearly 100
for Mercy and he would be nearly 0. He would score nearly 100 for prophecy and
I would be at the bottom. Thankfully, the one score we shared in common was
generosity, which made the living out of that gift so much simpler! Taking the
same inventory nearly two decades later, our scores had moderated quite a bit.
Neither of us were nearing either 100 or 0 in any of the gifts and our scores
had aligned so much that we looked more complimentary. I can only guess that this
is a result of us spending so much time together, figuring out life and having long,
deep conversations. Over time, we seem to have worn off on each other. He’s
become much more merciful, and I’ve become much more pragmatic. The same thing,
or a similar thing anyways, happens when we spend time with God. Thankfully,
our bad habits and foibles don’t corrupt Him, but His love, peace, and kindness
change us for the better.
We’ve looked at a lot
of different characteristics of and cultivation options for plants over the
last two weeks. Here’s one
more fun fact for you. It can take from 2-10 years for an apple tree to
bear fruit! A standard apple tree, when planted as a developed plant, will grow
apples in 4-6 years after being planted. A dwarf tree (one that only grows up
to 6-12 feet tall) may produce apples only 2-3 years after being planted. If
you grow an apple tree from seed, however, it can take up to 6-10 years before
you see a return on your investment! As you can see, much of the timing is
determined by both the type of tree and the type of start it got. The same is true
for us. We’re not going to do our first Bible study and be instantly full of
the fruit of the Spirit!
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