Did you ever notice how often the New Testament uses fruit as a metaphor for actions?
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
Matthew 3:8
John the Baptist used the imagery to rebuke the Pharisees.
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
Matthew 7:16
Jesus used fruit to describe the results of false teaching and warn against false teachers.
This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
John 15:8
Jesus used a whole chapter (in our measurement) to describe God as a divine gardener, tending his crops, exhorting his audience to produce good fruit.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-25
So who is working in Paul’s message to the Church in the region of Galatia? The Holy Spirit! Paul says that we can either keep in step with the Spirit and let God produce good works within us or we can be worldly and let sin work within us.
It is a mark of the power of God, not the worthiness of the disciple to see good fruit be produced, just as fruit helps us identify and evaluate a plant. If we are Spiritual and keeping step with the Spirit, godly things will come from us!
Ethan Kirl
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