I always say, God knew what He was doing when He made fruit. I mean, it’s a wonderful, sweet, refreshing snack full of nutrients for my body. So when the Bible informs me that God wants to make my life and my spirit fruitful,

I am all for it!

 

In the 15th chapter of John, Jesus implores us to remain in Him as He remains in us…..just like we are a branch in the vine that is Jesus. IF we remain IN Jesus, we will be fruitful. In Christ Jesus, a person can be transformed into a wonderful, sweet, nuritioning, and refreshing thing full of love.

And God allows us to use that sweetness to minister to this cold, parched, bitter world.

 

In the NIV, Galatians 5:22-23 says: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.”

 

So basically, if we are living with God’s spirit in us, we begin to bear God’s fruit. People know we belong to God through our words and actions. We should seem different than the people of the world around us who are not living with God’s spirit inside of them. Not “holier than thou” kind of different, but more like God Himself. Jesus did not look like the Pharisees and the teachers of the law in His day, full of rules and judgment. He made friends with sinners – prostitutes and tax collectors (who had purposely cheated people out of money). He did not hang out with sinners to become like them but to love them and show them a different way of living and thinking.

 

In the EASY English version of the Bible, the same verses from Galatians are spelled out differently:

But God’s Spirit in us causes us to love God and other people. He causes us to be happy and without trouble deep inside ourselves. He causes us to be patient, kind and good. He causes us to believe that God will continue to help us. He causes us not to think that we are better than other people. He causes us to rule ourselves properly. And there are no rules against these things that God’s Spirit causes us to do.

 

I just love the idea of God’s Spirit CAUSING things to change within me! This happens when we live IN Christ Jesus and allow Him to dwell IN us. I want to remain in the vine so I can bear fruit! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are all on my list of words I want used to describe me as a person, and they are all sweetly given by the one True Vine and His Father, the Gardener.

Emily Kilby
Latest posts by Emily Kilby (see all)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *