I was asked to lead a painting Life Group as a guest painter for two Monday nights in October. I enjoy painting and I enjoy seeing others open up their creativity. So, I painted my canvas ahead of time so everyone could have a visual of the end product. It’s Fall and pumpkins came to mind, so that’s what I painted. Two simple Fall pumpkins. Maybe an hour before class was to start I wanted to make a short lesson to go a long with the painting. I didn’t want to show up with just a painting I wanted to show up with a word for them. And immediately the Lord gave me the word HARVEST. So I researched the word Harvest for a min and it lead me to Harvesting fruit. Then I was like “duhhhhhhhh Crystal, your facebook page Heart Friendly Fruit… pumpkins are fruit….. HARVESTING THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT!” Bam, I got it God, and I’m on it.
Throughout the Bible, harvest carries a lot of spiritual significance; a metaphor for spiritual growth and health. There is a lot of debate on if pumpkins are a fruit of vegetable, but from my understanding of fruits, pumpkins on that food group list.
To switch gears just slightly, the apostle Paul speaks of another kind of fruit – the fruit of the Spirit. That’s what I want to speak on a short minute, HARVESTING THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT.
Paul says “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). In order to harvest the fruit of Spirit we must first sow it in our lives. Galatians 5:25 gives us a tip on how to begin to reap this crop, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” Farmers labor to produce their crop, so we must work hard, too. When we allow the Holy Spirit to fill our lives, we choose to react in a Godly manner when circumstances seem to hit us the wrong way or we become annoyed with certain situations.
We can’t expect to walk around planting bad seed and expect a bountiful harvest of good fruit. Bad seeds, bad soil will produce rotten fruit in your life. Sometimes things happen in our lives and we want to blame the devil, but, honestly, if we look back and evaluate our situation somewhere along our walk we’ve planted a few seeds of bitterness, anger, or etc., and we’re now reaping the fruit of that bad seed. Here we have to learn how to pray and dig up all the roots that were planted, and till that soil and replant a seed of forgiveness, patience, or gentleness, and watch the outcome blossom.
There was a situation, a time in my marriage to where I was put to this test, which fruit should I plant. I’ll admit I started planted seeds of bitterness, seeds of anger, seeds of joylessness. You name it I was slinging them seeds out all in a span of 30 minutes. That’s how quick it can happen. That’s why its so important we take our thoughts captive, and weigh them before speaking them. I had to apologize to Sean for the hurtful things I was saying to him, and about the things I was saying over him to myself. Even though he had just hurt me and in my flesh I didn’t think he deserved an apology from me, but my spirit man knew that I was planting seeds that needed to be removed before a root could take place. I’m glad I listened to the Holy Spirit and removed those seeds and replaced them with seeds from the fruit of the spirit. Because now, we’re reaping fruit from that time, and its good fruit!!
I just want to encourage you to embrace the fruit of the spirit as an every day walk.. It’s OK to remind yourself daily that embracing these scriptures are daily choices. Choose to be patient, choose to be joyful, choose to be kind, choose to have self-control, choose to love.
Galatians 5:16 16 But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God).