Checking the Fruit

One of the things I enjoy living in Florida is the oranges. We live close to a "u-pick" fruit place and during the season we will buy at least three 1/4 bushels of oranges that we often pick ourselves. Since I eat them more regularly than my husband does, I find I need to rearrange them around almost daily to keep them from becoming soft in spots which leads to their deterioration.

I was thinking about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I love this bag of fruit, however, sometimes I neglect it or certainly do not check it often enough to make sure that each one is staying fresh. I find I need to run through a "spiritual" fruit check to make sure they are not sitting in one spot going soft, therefore deteriorating.

We are to walk in the spirit so we do not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The works of the flesh are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, drunkenness, revelries and the like. What a list! Most of us would read through this list quickly and assume we are not guilty of any of it. But if you really look at them slowly meditating on what they mean and their different forms we could probably see at any given time that we have fallen somewhere in this list. That is why Paul tells us that we are to walk in the Spirit. Then he goes on to tell us what that is.

Memorize Galatians 5: 22, 23 and check your fruit daily.

P.S. We are leaving tomorrow for a short trip. I will not be posting until January 11, 2010.