Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Lord, Give Us More Spiritual Fruit

I love reading this list:
  • love
  • joy
  • peace
  • longsuffering
  • gentleness
  • goodness
  • faith
  • meekness
  • temperance

You probably recognize it as the list that Paul gave of the “fruit of the spirit.” I look around us today and it occurs to me that what we need is more spiritual fruit.

When you think of spiritual fruit, don’t think of it as different kinds of fruit. Love isn’t one kind of fruit and peace another. The nine things in the list are attribute that describe one kind of fruit. Just like we as an apple is sweet, firm, red, round, etc. The fruit of the spirit is these nine things.

And like an apple tree produces apples, the fruit of the spirit is what Christians produce. It is our actions. But not all of our actions can be called the fruit of the spirit, only those actions that demonstrate love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.

I often seen people I didn’t know and thought, “that person has to be a Christian.” What caused me to think that was the way they treated other people. They treated people with love. They were joyful. They had an attitude of peace. They weren’t quick to take offense. They were gentle. They did was right. They had faith. They didn’t lord over other people. They abstained from things they shouldn’t be involved in. We need more people like that in all areas of life. We need them in business. We need them in politics. We need them in schools and colleges. We need more spiritual fruit.