Where the Fruit Comes From

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This Week's Devotion Was Inspired By:

Galatians 5:22-23

^{^{But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.}}

FROM HEAD KNOWLEDGE TO HEART KNOWLEDGE:

1. Evaluate in prayer: Do you think other people tend to see the fruits of the Spirit in your life? What fruits do you think are most evident? What do you think may be lacking?

2. Apply to now & the future: Take some time and seek the Lord in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to work in and through you. Ask God to grow more fruit of the Spirit in your life - patience and joy, love and peace, gentleness, kindness, goodness, self-control --- the ways the Holy Spirit shows up in our lives! Keep asking and praying daily, and look for ways you see the Spirit growing in your life.

KEY POINT: Rather than trying to muster up kindness, patience, and love in ourselves, we must spend time with God & beg Him to grow these fruits in us.

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Transcript

You know, we need the fruit of the Spirit in our classroom, but often the way we go about trying to grow it is totally backwards. You see, the fruit of the Spirit is the fruit, the result of the Spirit, but often we treat it like it's the fruit we can somehow, like, muster up in ourselves, right?

So, let me read the verse real quick and just remind us what fruit we're talking about. And then I want to make sure we're understanding: where does this actually come from?

So, Galatians 5:22 and 23:

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law."

Think for a moment of those virtues and what a difference they would make if they always poured out of you in your classroom, in life, right? Peace, patience, love, kindness, self-control. Oh my goodness. How amazing would my life be if I was always pouring these things into other people, right?

I know that is not the reality in my life. I'm sure it's not in yours either, right? But as we think about these, I think a lot of times we read this and then we're just like, "I'm falling so short. All right, I'm going to, like, muster this up. I'm going to be more patient." And that's not how it works.

If you read the whole chapter of Galatians, which I would encourage you to do, and especially if you read the whole book, but if you read Galatians 5, you'll see that he's talking about how we cannot muster these things in ourselves.

We only can get these from the Spirit, from the Spirit supernaturally doing something in us that we can't do for ourselves. And I mean, every one of us has a few of these virtues that are naturally part of our personality, but there's a few others that are definitely not. And we have to yield to the Spirit.

We have to go to the Spirit and say, "God, I need you to grow patience in me because I'm struggling. I need you to grow joy in me because I don't have that." And we need to continually, day after day after day, go to God and say, "God, please grow these fruits in me." We need to spend time with him so that he can do that work in our hearts.

So today, as you think about your classroom and your life and where you might need these fruits and which fruits you might need most, I want to encourage you not to just say, "I'm going to try harder." But to go to the one source that can actually grow this in you and ask him right now:

"God, please grow patience in me. Please grow joy in me in this specific situation, in this part of my classroom, towards this particular student." And then watch and see what he will do.

FROM HEAD KNOWLEDGE TO HEART KNOWLEDGE:

1. Evaluate in prayer: Do you think other people tend to see the fruits of the Spirit in your life? What fruits do you think are most evident? What do you think may be lacking?