Imagine
driving down a country road: baby lambs, beautiful fields, gentle streams, hot
sun-–then oh blissful day! A fruit stand! Overflowing with sunflowers, corn,
cherries, nectarines, peaches and plums! The colors of the fruit splash out
like an advertisement for the juicy goodness that awaits inside this colorful
natural wrapper, and you simply must pull over. You have been drawn in to the
yumminess that awaits. The fruit is beautiful and filled with goodness-you can
tell by the wrapping. Somehow the bargain bin--fifty percent off of the
bedraggled and worn out fruit--just doesn’t entice.
The
fruit of the spirit in our lives can be a little like this. Sometimes hidden by
the scars and bruises of life, sometimes shielded by the bedraggled covering of
the day. But oh glorious day when our fruit
is shiny and bright! Kindness not masked by a weary heart, goodness not shielded
from view by an unkempt spirit. Patience and joy and peace shining bright to
draw people in.
When
the Christ-like attributes of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control are bright and shiny in our lives they draw those
who don’t know Christ to us. What is this joy that is in this heart? What is
the kindness that I see pouring out of this individual? How can I pluck that
off of a tree and pour it into my life? As a fruit stand displays its products,
so should our lives display our Savior’s great love for mankind. His attributes
on display through us is one way that Jesus Christ is revealed to a world that
doesn’t know him. The goodness in your life is inspiring to others. The joy in
my life is explained only by the fact that it comes directly from Him.
But the fruit of
the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians
5:22, 23
