Good fruit: Spiritual Growth in and out of Season

The bible describes one of the fruit of the Spirit as goodness. The Holy Spirit within us can somehow produce good fruit. This is contrasted with the fruit of the flesh. If we "live in the Spirit" we will not exhibit fleshly fruit. The Bible says that these are contrary to each other. We naturally produce worldly fruit but it must take some supernatural fertilizer to produce spiritual fruit right?

Living in the spirit is making the conscience effort to step back and allow God to lead your life. When we make decisions, one thing leads to another and that is how a life is formed. Your previous knowledge and previous choices have led you to the life that you experience today. But what if you had a fork in that road and chose to follow God down a different street? Then His knowledge would change the trajectory of your life. That is how living in the Spirit is. It takes you from living life on your own terms to readjusting your life for spiritual growth that produces good fruit.

Production for good fruit requires right growing conditions. You need to sun, water and time to ripen. Fruit is good when it is mature - not too soon before and definitely not after. It needs to be just right. However, who has a just right life? Fruit can only be developed in season, but spiritual fruit ripens in and out of season. You can only be fully ready at all times for all things by aligning your life with Almighty God.

All things that are good in our lives are a result of God's goodness to us. Jesus said "I am the vine, you are are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing". (John 15:5, KJV)

Just as we can do no good without Him, we need Him to be any good at all.
 Good fruit is the only kind of fruit that is worth eating. Everything else is either counterfiet or bad or both. Think about it. Even if you have some good fruit, if it is not used, it will begin to go bad. God gives us ample opportunity to be fruit-bearers on this earth. We can practice faith and kindness and goodness daily, but many times, we let it "go bad". We waste our love and peace by replacing it with counterfeit fruits. This does not please God and people know when you are not genuinely following Jesus and have a true connection to His vine.

So how about we get the right heart conditions for bearing good fruit and show what a real connection to Jesus looks like!

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