The Fruit of the Spirit by Rick RennerSample

Here’s What the Holy Spirit Wants To Produce in You! 

One day while we were visiting a remote village in southern Moldova, a precious Moldavian family invited our family to come to their home for lunch. When we arrived, we could see a huge table set up outside under a veranda. The veranda was covered with luscious green vines laden with the biggest grapes I had ever seen.

When it was time for dessert, oversized platters overflowing with grapes were placed on the table before us. We had never seen such plump, colorful grapes, so at first, we just looked at them in amazement. When we finally put them in our mouths and bit down on the fruit, the juices literally flowed. It was the sweetest fruit we had ever tasted in our lives! I can almost taste those grapes again as I write about them now.

Fruit is wonderful! It is healthy, beneficial, and delicious. This is one reason the apostle Paul used the word “fruit” to describe the wonderful things the Holy Spirit wants to produce in our lives!

In Galatians 5:22 and 23, Paul elaborates on the fruit that the Holy Spirit produces in a believer’s life—and what a contrast there is between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.

The flesh produces “works” (Galatians 5:19-21)—from the Greek word erga, which implies hard work or hard labor—but the Spirit produces fruit! The word “fruit” in verse 22 is from the Greek word karpos, which describes the fruit of plants, the fruit of trees, or the fruit of one’s body, such as a person’s children or offspring. Regardless of whether it is a plant, animal, or human, all fruit is produced from some kind of seed. If there is no seed, there is no fruit—and the kind of seed that is sown determines the fruit that will be produced.

The moment you received Jesus as your Savior by faith, God sowed His Spirit and His Word into your heart like a seed, and you were spiritually born again by the incorruptible Seed of the Word of God. God’s Seed inside you immediately began to produce God—in other words, godly attributes, or fruit. You should expect your life to yield the fruit of the Spirit, for that is the Seed that has been sown into your heart!

So don’t give way to the flesh today. Instead, yield to the Holy Spirit and allow the Seed that God has sown to produce the fruit of the Spirit in your life.