Galatians 5:22-25 Chrisitan Fruit
 

Galatians 5:22-25: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. ²⁴ And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit


Often I see Christians who are struggling to live for Christ (myself included....never think that the writer is immune to these issues, because no one is perfect, but God).  They show up for church on Sunday, sing the songs, listen to the teaching, but the rest of the week, no one would know they were a Christian. They are mean to others, selfish, out of control, caught up in habitual sin, and living to fulfill their own desires.    The saddest thing about the scenario I just described is that this is very common in church today.  This picture of the modern Christian is not how a life in Christ should look like.  We do not have to live hike a heathen all week, and 'get right' on Sunday morning, but we can strive to be more Christ-like all week long. 

When we come to Christ, we are a new creation, the old things have passed away according to Scripture.(Rev 21:5). Just because when we accept Christ as our Savior, it does not mean that we are going to be perfect in how we walk in Christ. As we spend time with Christ, we will walk (and sometime crawl) towards Him. There is nothing greater in our walk with God after accepting Him as your Savior than to have God work on your life, and to allow those fruit shine in your life. Walking with Christ means that

 Those around us can see the fruit mentioned in the text above becoming evident in our lives.  God does place blinders on us often to not see that we are changing for Him, because He knows that we will get puffed up in pride, and think we are better than we are really are.  God does say in James that He 'resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.'.  It is hard to walk in the grace of God when we are full of pride.

The next logical question that is asked is how to obtain this fruit from God?  Ask God for these fruits.  He will give you the desires for these things.  The thing to keep in mind is that when we ask for this, God will send trials into our lives to refine us.   When we ask God to give us patience (longsuffering), what happens?  God will give us an opportunity to show we can be patient.  When we ask God to help us with any fruit, He will give us a way to demonstrate that fruit.  I believe God does this to strip away our self-reliance on showing His fruit in our own strength.  Since God made it clear our best work is as filthy rags, then God does not want us to demonstrate His fruit in our strength.  God wants ALL credit and glory for the growth in our walk with Him.  One of the hardest things for us to accept is that God allows us to go through hard seasons, in order to have us grow more in love with Him.  Walking with Christ is not supposed to be easy.

How does your fruit look today?  Is it a sweet aroma to God?  Does it smell like refuse?  If it is a sweet smell, I commend you for faithfulness to God, and encourage you to keep pressing towards God.  If it smells like refuse, it is not too late to clean the rotten fruit out and for new fruit to grow in it's place.  I encourage you to go to God, Repent of allowing your fruit to rot, and ask God to give you the strength to not only clean up the rotten fruit, but fill your garden with the sweet aroma of fresh fruit that pleases God.   

Whatever I can do help you grow closer to Christ, let me know.  I can be reached at kevdogg329@gmail.com   I will pray for you, and will help encourage the best I can to press towards God.

-Kevin