What's your fruit?

I'm continuing my discussion on living "for the praise of his glorious grace" (Ephesians 1:6).  What does this look like?  In my last post I addressed my concern for living for ourselves verses for God.  But now the question is: How do we know we are living for Christ?  You will know by our fruit.

I will admit the first time I heard this I was a little confused.  Because not understanding most spiritual things, I of course starting thinking apples, bananas... really is a tomato a fruit?  Eventually I discovered Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."  So the fruit we bear isn't something we can hold in our hands or eat.  Our fruit is evidenced in how we react and respond to our world around us.  Let's take a closer look at Galatians 5: 16-26:

16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 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.


22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.


25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

As Christians our ultimate desire is to live for Christ.  In order to do this we have to deny our self and our desires of the flesh.  As verse 17 states, desires of the flesh are at war with the desires of the Spirit and vice-versa, making it impossible to live for Christ if we are succumbing to worldly and flesh desires.  These are listed very nicely for us in verses 19-21, "sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies."  These are all a result of the fallen human world.

So how do we overcome them? We see in verses 22-23 how we are supposed to react, with "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control".  Is it possible to simply wake up one day with impure sexual desires gone, alcoholism defeated, all relationships restored, and contentment with what you have? No, no, no and... no.  We need Christ who was crucified for our sins, its through him we "have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (verse 24).  Meaning that we died with Christ to sin.  But we cannot overcome the flesh on our own, it will take a mighty act of God to truly change our hearts.

So what can we do?
1.) Pray.  We need to ask God to do the work and to make the changes of our hearts.
2.) Read.  Dig into scripture, learn more about our Savior Christ Jesus through whom all things are possible (Philipians 4:13).   
3.) Submit.  To Christ and to the church.  We Christians were not placed in this world to do things on our own.  In Christ, we have fellow believers we can turn to keep us accountable, for encouragement, and to share our lives.
4.) Repeat.  It is a never ending cycle of learning, praying and submitting.


In November of 2006 my life didn't completely turn around.  It was a very gradual shift which continues today.  There were sins in my life that were stronger to overcome than others.  I learned the hard way that the fruit ("love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control") isn't natural. I was like many who tried and tried to be a better person, it took awhile for me to realize all I need is Christ.  I needed to give up my sin to Him because he already paid the ultimate price, he took the wrath that I so deserve.  In giving up that control fully to Christ I was able to start seeing the fruit in my life.  Praise to our Father God in Heaven for his glorious grace!