Sweet Fruit

It’s summertime, which is the perfect time for fruit. However, that is not the kind of fruit I want to talk about here.  I want to focus on the fruit of the spirit, not on how you can prepare the best fruit salad or keep your strawberries fresh for longer (but if anyone knows how, please tell me lol). Thankfully, there’s plenty of scripture using the analogy of fruit.

First off, why is fruit so important? Here’s the thing, it can be quite easy to claim to be a Christian, especially where I live, the Bible Belt of America. A lot of people here go to church, have a Bible verse in their Instagram bio, and claim to follow Jesus. Yet, that’s all the evidence they have. They may be at church on Sunday, looking like Jesus, but the rest of the week, they’re a completely different person. My associate pastor calls this a “country music faith” since so many country music songs sing about getting crazy wasted on a Saturday night and going to church on a Sunday. My brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not the kind of faith we should have, if you can even call it a real faith.

Going to church, wearing a WWJD bracelet, and having a worship playlist isn’t enough to show what we believe. Yes these things are good, but if that’s all the evidence we have, what good is out faith? Our life should consistently show that we are rooted in Christ. Notice I said consistently, not perfectly. We will still mess up and fall into sin. We may make a selfish decision, hurt someone, or be rude when someone decides to drive recklessly (which I can confess was me today). But we don’t let that sin defines us, instead we overcome it and walk in the way of Jesus. By producing fruit that reflects Jesus, that is how we and others can know that we follow Him, as He states in Matthew 7:18-20: “A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” In simpler terms, as my pastor in Mobile says: “No fruit, no root.”

Now onto the what that fruit actually is, found in Galatians 5:22-23, which says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (Gal 5:22-23, ESV). These are the fruit that we as Christians should have as evidence in our lives that we truly believe and follow Christ. Before these verse, Paul basically lists the opposites of these:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  (Galatians 5: 19-21)

Christian, if the rest of our week looks like this more than the fruits of the Spirit, what are we doing? If our lives look like this, yet we claim Christ because we wear a cross necklace, we’ve missed the point. I’m not saying this to point fingers, I’m saying this to encourage you to look at yourself and reflect on how you show the fruits of the Spirit. It’s easier to look at the fruits you need to add instead of the things you should stop doing. When you begin to add more love to your life, hate naturally has less and less room. When you add more self-control, envy must leave. And this is not all on you, my friend. If you truly follow Christ, then you have His power over sin inside of you. You just need to be obedient as God prunes these things so that you can produce good fruit.

Start off simply by picking a fruit you may struggle with. My example is peace. I easily get caught up in the worries of just getting by, as I’m sure many of you are. We turn on the news and instantly get chaos thrown at us. It’s so easy to get caught up in the worries of life, leaving peace nowhere to be found. Yet Jesus reminds us that He gives us a peace unlike the peace the world may offer (John 14:27). Scripture reminds me to simply bring my worries to God, allowing His peace to wash away my anxiety of it (Philippians 4:6).

So my brothers and sisters in Christ, let us truly produce fruit that reflects Christ. Let us not rely on a trendy Christian t-shirt, our church attendance, or family members in ministry to be evidence of a Christian life. Let our lives truly reflect Christ, where those who know can say “I see Christ in them” and those who don’t say “There’s something different about them.” And let us hold one another accountable, not to shame each other, but to encourage one another in love as we are called to do.

     Love y'all <3 :).