Know Them by their fruits

Peach season in Texas typically starts in early to mid-May and runs through late August.  One summer, when our second son was in Austin, Texas, he took us to a beautiful Peach farm to pick peaches.  Standing inside a farm with the sweet aroma of the ripened fruit is intoxicating and is an experience by itself!  The farm owners give us a basket for collecting the peaches plucked by us.  These will be billed at the counter later, but you can eat as many as you can for free!  I have not seen anything like that in India!  As I think back on that experience, what stands out is the criteria for picking the fruit from a tree.  We wanted to gather more from that tree whenever we tasted a good fruit.  Whenever we came across flat-tasting fruit, we passed that tree!  If most of the trees on the farm produce sweet fruits, more people flock to the farm and have a brisk business!  It is the fruit that sells the produce from the farm!

The Bible teaches us that people can be known by their fruits (Matthew 7:16,20).  Fruit is the external result of an internal relationship with the Lord.  The fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians 5:22,23 is visible to the outside world.  "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control."  When we exhibit such fruit, others would also want that fruit and, therefore, will seek the Source and the Giver of such excellent fruit!  But when we display bitter fruits of hatred, unforgiveness, and dishonesty, people would pass by!  Yet, like physical fruit needs time to grow, the fruit of the Spirit will also not ripen in our lives overnight.  Like a successful gardener battles against weeds, we must constantly work to rid our lives of the ‘weeds’ of our old sin natures that want to choke out the work of the Spirit.  As we give the Spirit more control of our lives, He begins to do in and through us what He alone can do - to shape us and grow us to be more like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).  

My friend, the question we have to answer today is, does your life and mine exhibit the fruit of the Spirit.  May our transformed lives be witness to the one who transformed us, the Lord Jesus Christ!

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