Fruit of the Spirit
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
Devotional:
The Fruit of the Spirit describes the characteristics of Jesus Christ. During my time in Puerto Rico, I had different occurrences where I believed I was a botanist. I would plant other seeds together to get a rare fruit and cut branches out of one tree to add to another at home to get a hybrid fruit. Although I tried hard to be this “mad scientist,” Needless to say, I failed every time!
As I meditated on this over the last few weeks, aside from chuckling, I heard the Lord say to me, “The why you couldn’t get any rare fruit is because the trees didn’t possess the characteristics of the fruit you were trying to get.” On many occasions, I tried to get lemons from an orange tree, but the orange tree doesn’t have the traits to bear lemons.
We are often trying to express the attributes of Jesus without Jesus. What happens is that we get frustrated when we cannot have the patience, the peace, or the love that the Bible talks about. The reason? We are not allowing Holy Spirit to make us more like Jesus. The fruit of Galatians 5:22-23 is Jesus, and in His nature he exudes all of the nine characteristics listed in this passage. For us to follow his lifestyle, we must learn to do two things, Abide in Him and allow the Holy Spirit to live inside us, teaching us how to function in these traits. Take the time today to invite Jesus to live in you and you in Him, and let the Spirit of God show you how to operate in these characteristics and become more like Jesus Christ.
Let’s Pray:
Father, I pray that today you allow me to abide in you, and I open myself up for you to abide in me. Allow me to know you, to be led by you so that I can live according to the scriptures, showing the fruit of the spirit in everything I do. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
