.png)
The Trouble of Comparing Fruit
If you’re asking yourself, “How can I do it all?” you’re in the right place, but you”re going to have to hang with me until the end. What started out with this shared frustration quickly went to the fruit bowl.
Of course, you’ve heard it too: that’s apples to oranges. Peaches to plums. Bananas to mangos. I think the trouble of comparing fruit is obvious.
Would you like a bowl of sliced bananas topped with fresh lemon?
(Side note: are bananas even a fruit? Did you know conventionally grown bananas are considered sterile and the scant, tiny dark flecks inside are considered sterile seeds?)
Back to the point, there’s a valid reason why we don’t compare apples to oranges; they’re not the same fruit. They’re not meant to resemble one another. In fact, it’s their differences not their commonalities that are celebrated.
Fruit Baskets
It’s probably no secret that some fruits should not hang out in the same basket. You can read more about which ones and why here. But in case you didn’t know, it’s not wise to keep all fruit together. Not unless you don’t mind rotten, smelly, yucky fruit, that is.
No Fruits of the Spirit
Guilty. Back when I was a new teacher, and a younger Christian woman, I made this mistake. One day my students came into class to behold a large bulletin board hosting an overflowing fruit bowl filled with grapes, oranges, bananas, pears and apples as its glorious center piece.
If there was another reason for the fruit bowl, such as a hospitality prompt or brunch invitation, it would have been appropriately used. Sadly, this board’s statement included every word from the passage out of Galatians on the fruit of the spirit.
I’m not being nit-picky here; there is no fruits of the spirit. Unknowingly, and ignorance is no excuse; thank the Lord for His grace, I was teaching those children there were many fruits of the spirit. Dare I say, I probably even had a coloring sheet to match.
But I’m here to tell you, Friends, there is no fruits of the spirit. No, there is one Holy Spirit and He bears ONE fruit. Therefore, that fruit-Him, God’s Holy Spirit, exhibits many attributes, as does any one fruit. But it does not stand in conflict or danger of itself.
(And it DOES have a lot to do with our quest: Can I learn to do it all? Keep reading!)
Fruit of the Spirit
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23
Flesh vs Spirit
My husband was a body builder when I met him. He also was a missionary to local teenagers. Many times he would draft the assistance of one of his buddies to help in a skit for youth gatherings.
Wearing a white t-shirt with S P I R I T written across the chest he would battle, quite forcefully, his helper whose black t-shirt was inscribed equally with the word F L E S H.
The lights and music set the stage as the two men dramatically told the story of our daily fight between the flesh and the spirit. For his skit, SPIRIT always won. FLESH would lay motionless and sometimes bloodied from the beating.
This is the fight that keeps on keeping on in our hearts: flesh vs spirit.
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.
Galatians 5:16-18
Wants to do Evil
Our flesh wants to-desires to-do evil. It doesn’t take long for new parents to realize just how true God’s words are that we are all born sinners. The littlest people in our lives know how to sin without the first lesson in doing wrong.
Sinful Nature
The sinful nature. We all know it.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19-21
Whoa, look how the Lord throws jealousy, selfishness and anger into the same sinful cesspool with drunkenness and sexual immorality. Is there anyone in flesh and blood who hasn’t been selfish or jealous?
The point of this passage isn’t that we should be free from any and all of these sins, or we’re doomed to be separated from an eternity with the Lord. No, it’s that we cannot live there. Our lifestyle cannot be described as such; then, as scripture teaches, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
Saved Sinners
When we have been saved through faith in Jesus, we’re not saved from ever sinning again, but we are Saved Sinners. The Holy Spirit who lives within us has power over our sinful desires. We are not who we once were.
My pastor used to say, “To walk in the Spirit is to walk with no known sin.” The Lord tells us not only what a sinful lifestyle looks like, and ends with, but also what a Spirit filled lifestyle looks like.
The FRUIT of the Spirit
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
Galatians 5:22-23
Apples
There are different kinds of apples, some firmer, sweeter, tarter, redder, rounder, bigger, juicer than the next, but they’re all apples. Each one unique in its own design, but each exemplifying characteristics belonging only to an apple.
From the same Holy Spirit who fills us as we yield to Him (no known sin), we show His character, His fruit in us, by how we live.
When life is great, it’s the Spirit’s joy, peace, love and all He is that exudes from our hearts and lives. Other’s see Christ in us because we live and walk with Him.
Conversely, when life is hard the same Spirit’s attributes are known by the way we respond to the tough times, too. This is true whether it comes by a tough day at home with our children or husband, or we just “the” phone call no one ever wants to hear.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t change, but He changes us. The joy and peace we realize as we walk with Him flows from us as we walk through life, hard days, good days and ordinary days. We cannot ‘try’ to be better Christians by being kinder; we are kinder (gentle, good, self-controlled, patient, joyful, loving etc) because we are walking with the Lord and His attributes are our attributes as a result.
So, why all this about fruit versus fruits? It’s important to realize who Jesus is in us by way of His Holy Spirit. When we belong to Christ, we have Him living in us. He is ONE person in us, doing a work He desires and for the glory of the Father.
An apple is an apple.
Every apple has the skin, stem, pulp (flesh), and seeds. Each quality has a different and important role in the fruit’s whole being; without any one of them there is no apple. An apple is an apple. Yet every part thereof has a very different attribute.
One Spirit, One Fruit
And so it is with the fruit of the spirit. Unlike a fruit bowl filled with all types of fruits from different family sets, the fruit of the spirit comes from ONE spirit and exhibits ONE fruit.
When we find ourselves short on patience, without peace and joy in our life, getting angry where we shouldn’t, having no self-control, lacking goodness and kindness outside of and especially inside our homes, and walking around as if we have no faith, we have a problem.
We have a Problem
We have a spiritual problem. A spiritual problem isn’t fixed in the world, it’s fixed in the WORD and through the Holy Spirit. How many times have you decided you were going to be kinder or more patient?
So, after getting everyone ready and loaded up, you take your children to the park. Patting yourself on the back you think, so far, it’s a pretty good go of your determination of being kinder, more patient.
I Scream You Scream we all Scream for Icecream
Breathing a big sigh of relief, you’re feeling good now. happily walking away from the ice cream truck, all hands full and every face smiling! This isn’t so hard after all!
Then, only a few short steps from the long line you’d just spent way too long waiting in, it happens. One child bumps another and Mr. Smoothie leaves the cone and takes a direct hit to the hot pavement below.
Smiles and giggles seem to follow suit as tears and screams trade for their position. What seconds ago had you feeling really good about yourself in quest of kinder and more patient is history.
Quick, fast and in a hurry you realize you’re out of patience and your reaction to fallen ice cream and dramatic screams match that of your icecreamless child.
Fail
Fail. Failed attempt to be ‘better.’ You probably know this to be true, too. This happens every time we try to fix a spiritual problem in the flesh. We fail. As we should. Just like we can’t fix a flat tire from inside our house, we can’t fix a spiritual issue from inside the flesh.
But, that’s exactly what we try to do time and time again. Whatever you fill in the blank with in order to “be more patient, loving, kind, tender hearted, less angry” unless it starts and ends with more Jesus- personally-it’s not going to work. It’s a certain failure in the making.
More Jesus
For others to see Christ in us we need to walk with Him.
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.
Galatians 5:24-26
The answer isn’t any of the things we bemoan as out of reach for ourselves. When the world tells us we need “me time,” the WORD tells us otherwise:
- More love? More Jesus
- More Joy? More Jesus.
- More peace? More Jesus.
- More patience? More Jesus.
- More kindness? More Jesus.
- More goodness? More Jesus.
- More faithfulness? More Jesus.
- More gentleness? More Jesus.
- More self-control? More Jesus.
More Jesus.
How do I do it all?
When is the last time you asked yourself, “How do I do it all?” Time before that? This time right now?
So, hold that thought. Because, it’s not a question, really. It -the quest of how to do it all-is more of a lifestyle. I could go back through 35 years, year by year and now realize how I was asking the same thing, “How can I do it all?”
If I haven’t figured int out in over three decades of seeking, loving, obeying and striving to honor the Lord in my life, I’m not going to figure it out today. And there’s a good reason why.
In retrospect, it isn’t a question I asked once, but rather it has become a pattern and lifestyle. And it’s a futile quest for the Believer.
Unintentionally we take it-this self-directed objective of doing it all- from an inquiry for the moment and make it a lifestyle. We continually seek a way to do it all, and we continually fall short. Something is amiss.
It’s amiss, Friends, because it’s altogether the wrong question. We, as a follower of Christ should be asking instead: “How am I going to live by and follow the Holy Spirit in my life…today?”
How am I going to live by and follow the Holy Spirit in my life…today
Tamara henion
So, I’ll ask you now, what are you doing today to and follow and live by the Holy Spirit?
More Jesus.
More anything worthy of good in your life: MORE JESUS.
