Sept. 4, 2008

Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Since we are teaching the children about the Fruit of the Spirit, I thought I would talk about that today. As you can see, it is Fruit of the Spirit and not Fruits of the Spirit. It is one gift. It has many part but is one fruit. Once we are saved then we can receive the Fruit of the Spirit. We will be given more as we grow in this gift. The Fruit of the Spirit is like a seed. You need good soil to grow food. When you plant a seed you have to water it, fertilize it and need sunlight so it will grow strong and healthy and will produce fruit. Yeah I like that...produce fruit! The Holy Spirit helps us to use it properly. The Word of God is like water and fertilizer. The more we read it, the more we will become like God. Jesus is the sunshine. It is His light that shines through us. The Holy Spirit guides us and helps us to grow so we will become like Jesus. Then we will produce more fruit.

As you can see, the first Fruit of the Spirit is love. In John 15:12 it says, "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you (NJKV)." There are different ways we can show God our love for Him - by praying, listening and obeying His commandments. We can show we love others by helping them, being nice to them, sharing what we have and serving other people with our gifts and talents. As Rev. Brady said "love in action." In I Corinthians 13:4-6, Paul tells us about love. He says "4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And in Verse 8 he says "love never fails." Can't get any better than that!