Is Your Fruit Showing?

During the month of March, each of the 31 days on my FaceBook, I posted a “Kindness Tip.” I was encouraged to be more intentional in being kind to others. I will be listing those on my blog soon for those that don’t have FaceBook.   I was challenged by a friend to carry on with the tips, but, use the “Fruit of the Spirit” from the book of Galatians.

I had a plan with another project, but as I was reading through Galatians, I thought, I might give it a try. So, here we go…..

Reflections of Christ

When we see a tree and notice that it has apples on it, we say to ourselves, “that’s an apple tree!” We see the evidence with our own eyes of what kind of tree it is.

When we meet or see a Christian, we will hopefully, see the attributes of Christ.

In the New Testament Book of Galatians, we find where Paul wrote a letter to the Churches in the Galatia region. This message is also for churches in every generation. Paul has three main themes that he wants us to know and they are:

*Justification is by faith, not by keeping the Law;

*Christian freedom, which is freedom from the Law and freedom for service to God, is declared; and

*Guidelines for Christian living are given.

When you get to Chapter 5, verses 16-21, you read about the works of those that don’t live for Christ. When you reach verses 22-23, you find what we call the, “Fruit of the Spirit.” Many of us taught this to our children and helped them to memorize these verses. As adults, this is a good way to do a heart check and make sure we are truly walking in the Spirit of God.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is:

love,

joy,

peace,

longsuffering,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

and self-control.

Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV

For the next nine days we will take a look at each “fruit” listed and we can see how we are doing.

I hope you will join me as we can encourage one another to “Have a Heart Like His!”

In the mean time, I have homework for you.

*Read the entire book of Galatians. Don’t worry; there are only 6 chapters.

*Underline the verses in 5:22-23 and memorize.  If you have never memorized scripture before, this could be your first!

*Take note of verses 16-21; if any of the deeds listed, are in your life, you might need to work on those asap. Just sayin’.  (*yes, I’m talking to myself, too!)