Galatians 5 lists the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Which one do you find the most challenging to live out, and why?
It’s the Spirit’s fruit and not my fruit. The Spirit in me forms the fruit in my life as I follow Jesus. On my own I can’t live up to this consistently. It’s only by the Spirit that the fruit will show up in my life.
There’s a story about a preacher who invited a new convert to Christ to have lunch with him and his daughters. Afterwards the daughters complained to their father about how rude and opinionated their guest was. The father responded by asking his daughters to go pick some apples from the tree in the backyard. The daughters protested saying that the apples hadn’t ripened yet and wouldn’t be any good. The father said they were right and it was the same for their lunch guest. Give it some time and God’s work in him would ripen him into a new man.
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Thank you for saying this. I totally agree.