What fruit do you produce? Do you produce the fruit of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance? Or do you produce the fruit of the flesh; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelling, judgment, angriness, wrath, etc.?
What fruit do you produce?
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)
Your mind determines your actions. Therefore, if you produce the latter fruits; the fruits of the flesh, it means that you are still carnal. It means, that your mind is not renewed with the Word of God in those areas and you don’t walk after the Word and the Spirit, doing the will of God..
Remember, before you became born again, you walked in darkness. The devil was your father and you had his evil nature.
The devil was your example, you didn’t know any better because you were raised this way, until….. Jesus came into your life and delivered you from the power of the kingdom of darkness (Colossians 1:13).
Your spirit was death, but by faith and through regeneration in Jesus Christ, your spirit was raised for the death. Jesus Christ and His blood has made you holy and righteous and reconciled you to a new Father, your real Father: God, the Almighty.
Before God became your new Father, you were raised according to what your old father, the devil, commanded you to do. Now it’s time, to walk after the Spirit and listen to your new Father, and keep His commandments.
You accepted Jesus, after your sinful nature was exposed in His light and you repented of your sins. Through your repentance, you showed Him, that you didn’t want to live in your sins anymore. You were fed up with yourself and the way you lived after the flesh in sin. Because otherwise you wouldn’t have repented and given your life to Jesus Christ and accepted Jesus as your Saviour and Lord.
Now it is time to crucify your flesh; to lay down your old carnal life, with its evil sin nature and become a new creation, who has died in Christ and is born of the Spirit of God.
Let your spirit grow up into the likeness of Jesus
When you received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, your spirit was raised from the death and became alive. Now that the Holy Spirit dwells in you, it’s time that your spirit will grow up into the image of Jesus Christ.
The only way to spiritually mature, is by renewing your mind with the Word of God. You will read, study and meditate on the Word of God, apply the words in your life, so that you will become a doer of the Word.
You cannot grow up without the Word. The Word is your daily bread for your life.
While you study the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will guide you and teach you into all truth.
When you study the Word of God and renew your mind, you will notice that your way of thinking will change. When your way of thinking changes, your character will change. When your character changes, your speach and your actions will change. And finally, your whole being will change into the image of Jesus Christ.
You will begin to walk after the Spirit instead of walking after the flesh. You shall produce other fruits; the fruit of the Spirit, which are good fruit.
How do you change the fruit that you produce?
If you don’t experience a change of fruit in your life, you might ask yourselves: “am I really born again? Have I received the gift of the Holy Spirit? Am I spending time in the Word, so that my mind will be renewed into His mind or do I spend time on the things of this world and do I feed my mind with the things of the world? Do I really follow Jesus and do the things that He has commanded me to do?”
If your answer is ‘no’, then it’s time to start spending time in the Word of God. Renew your mind in those areas, that you bear bitter fruit; fruit of the flesh.
Do you envy people?
A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones (Proverbs 14:30)
Let’s say, that you envy people? Then it will be good to first lookup, what the word envy means and what the Bible says about envy. According to Wikipedia, the definition of envy is: envy occurs, when someone lacks another’s quality, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it.
The opposite of envy or jealousy is being content. When you are content, you don’t lack anything. The Bible instructs us, that we should be content in every situation:
Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content (Philippians 4:11)
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee (Hebrew 13:5).
Every time, when you look at others and envy rises up within you. Begin to speak that you are content with your life and that you don’t lack anything. That you are grateful and that you love your life, which God has given you. Say, that no matter what situation you are in, you will always be content and will not complain or look at others and be jealous of others.
Therefore, be always thankful and content with your life, instead of looking at others.
You have been made whole in Him
If you are in Christ, you will not lack a thing, because you have been made whole in Him. Therefore it is important to read and study the Bible, to find out, who you are in Christ.
If you don’t know, who you are in Christ and what it means to be seated in Him, you shall not be able to walk in it. You shall miss out on a lot, and you shall not live and walk in the dominion and the inheritance, that God has given to you in Jesus Christ.
You will not live the life, that God has created for you and therefore you will not fulfill God’s plan for your life.
And that’s exactly what the devil wants, because he wants you to fulfill his plan for your life instead of God’s plan. Therefore, the devil shall do everything he can to distract you and keep you ignorant. Because if you stay ignorant about the truth, you will not be able to walk in it. The devil uses many tools to distract you, especially entertainment. Because he enjoys to entertain you and fill your mind with his stuff.
If you don’t know your position as a born again believer and you don’t know, who you are in Christ then look up all the Scriptures that tell you who you are in Christ and what you have inherited in Him and meditate on these Scriptures and apply them to your life.
Find out, what God’s plan is for your life. The only way to find out, is by spending time in the Word with the Father.
Keep your eyes on Jesus and not on people. Don’t look at others, who do what you have always wanted to do, or have achieved, what you always wanted to achieve, or have, what you want to have. Because if you live that you, you shall stand still and you know that standing still is the same as backsliding.
When you sow in the Spirit, you will reap the fruit of the Spirit, which are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperancee.
In the next blog posts, every fruit of the Spirit will be discussed, starting with the fruit ‘joy‘.
‘Be the salt of the earth’
