I was recently serving as a volunteer at my Church VBS and one of the lessons that were taught to the kids was from Galatians 5:22-23 which says “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” The kids were asked about the fruits of the spirit and a lot of the younger kids answered with names of real fruits like apples, oranges, etc. This was a hard concept for some of the younger children in the group. How can fruit be produced from the spirit?

This experience made me wonder do we as adults even really understand what Paul was trying to say about the fruit of the spirit. Or are we in the same boat as these young kids who were not quite able to grasp the concept of our spirit-producing fruit? If you look at the process of how most fruits are produced in this world it is almost a perfect analogy to how our spirit bears fruit.

For almost any plant to produce fruit it has to go through a process, the seed has to be planted which then grows into a sapling which has to be nurtured and taken care of and after some time the plant finally bears fruit. Some plants take longer to bear fruit than other plants. Not evey fruit tree produces the fruit in the same way and in the same duration but every fruit tree has to go through a similar process to produce any kind of fruit from seed.

This is exactly how it is in Christian life when we accept Jesus Christ into our life a seed is planted and we receive the holy spirit. For Christians to start bearing the fruits of the spirit that Paul mentioned is a process. How we nurture and take care of our spiritual life and our relationship with Christ dictates how quickly we will start to show the fruits of the spirit. We all have the ability given to us by the holy spirit to start showing the fruits of the spirit but this is a lifelong battle. There is not one person on Earth who can say that they have got all these fruits of the spirit in the bag. There are always areas that need to improve. Fruit trees can produce bad fruit sometimes and they need to be restored and treated to start bearing fruit again. The same can happen in our spiritual life. We might stop producing the fruit of the spirit and the only way to continue bearing the fruit of the spirit is by reading the word of God and praying every day.

If you find yourself not producing the fruit of the spirit anymore then ask yourself this question. Are you still nurturing your spirit and taking care of it every day by praying and reading the word of God? If the answer is no then you answered your own question.