Fruit

Every gardener who has planted seeds looks forward to the time of harvest. What a joy a fresh abundant crop is to pick and enjoy! God has a harvest too. He plants the seed of His life within us, carefully tending its growth to nurture and protect the tender shoots of His nature than begin to appear. He adds the rain, the sun, even the storms, to make that Seed grow, becoming strong, rich with His fruit of love, peace, and joy.

God is looking for the fruit, not for the gifts of the spirit that are used to grow the Body in producing the fruit. Gifts are given without repentance—God does not change His mind about these gifts regardless of our character. But the purpose is to grow the fruit of His nature within His people. Humans continue to make godliness a law rather than a life that is lived. If we are to reign with Christ, the character of Jesus Christ that is the fruit of the spirit must first happen internally, with a changed heart.

The fruit of the spirit is the nature of Christ as He revealed Father God to His people:

“Now the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control: against such things there is no law." Galatians 5: 22-23 Concordant Literal

God makes no mistakes in the spiritual language He uses to teach us His ways of truth and wisdom. So what do we know about how fruit is produced? Does it struggle and strain to come forth from the vine or the tree or the bush? Does it make rules for how this is to happen? Does fruit make demands on the weather to ensure it will grow correctly? No. It stays connected to the vine! Yes, fruit is subject to adversity during its growth, but grow it will as it stays connected to its source of life.

Believers have long sung a song whose chorus states “Abiding in the vine, abiding in the vine…” Here is where the fruit of the spirit, the precious evidence of the Lord Jesus Christ’s nature and love, is developed and grows into maturity. Adversity makes the natural world stronger and so it is with us. We grow more fruit in the hard times, when struggles and opposition are upon us, than from the times of blessing, glorious as these are to experience.

Oh, Lord, teach us to abide until You write your laws upon our hearts! You alone can make us overcomers, perfecting us daily to be just like You. Think of it! When others see Christians, they are to see the Lord in us—His character and behavior in this world. No law, no decree, no formula, no multitude of words, no brute power can do this! As overcomers, we are promised to sit with Him in heavenly places, those spiritual heights from which He rules and reigns.

The sons of God, the overcomers, are to be placed with Him in His throne of authority and power as the government of His kingdom among men. And how are the sons to rule and reign?

“To no one owe anything, except to be loving one another, for he who is loving another has fulfilled law. For this: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not testify falsely, you shall not covet,’ and if there is any other precept, it is summed up in this saying, in this: ‘You shall love your associate as yourself.’

Love is not working evil to an associate. The complement, then, of law, is love.” Romans 13:8-10 Concordant Literal

All the evil in our earthly lives comes out of the heart of man, not externally from the world. Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.” Christians believe excellence is a Life, the life of Jesus Christ living within and shining forth to others. We aspire that others seeing any excellence, any virtue in us to know it is due to the Lord within, not of our own making, that any man can boast. We, like the Apostle Paul, desire to boast only in the Lord.

The first fruit that is evidence of the kingdom of God is righteousness. Righteousness is a Life lived with right principles from the foundation that He is within us. His all-righteous life is to rule within us as His temple, a state of being inChristed. It is not operating in the gifts, nor doing good works, nor acts of service, not religion’s rules, laws, and traditions, but His rulership within us. Then follows His peace and after that, His joy, as fruit (outward evidence) of His kingdom in our earth, right where we are!

In any area of our spirit and soul where He rules, creating that righteousness within us, we have peace and joy. He has taken His authority over that area. There may be more earth, more flesh for Him to conquer, but we are on our way.

"For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:16. ESV

We have the mind of Christ. NOW. As we continually surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ, He builds His character within us, becoming visible to others. It is a process of the Lord descending in us, His temple, as we learn to live, move, and have our being from this most wonderful and precious mind that always does the Father’s will. Think of it!

We are on the way to Zion, that holy spiritual city where the spirits of just men are being made perfect, waiting for us to be spiritually joined in that perfection to enter into rest together. God’s kingdom of righteousness is a spiritual kingdom, wrought only by the holy spirit within. It is real, more than any earthly kingdom that is only a temporary shadow of what is to come.

Say among the nations, ‘The Lord reigns.’ The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it.Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.

Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for He comes, He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.Psalm 96:10-13 NIV

His habitance is established as He imparts righteousness in His own. He alone is righteousness and He makes us righteous. The Lord through His sons will judge the people with the seven spirits of Father God dwelling in His own.

“And the spirit of Yahweh shall rest on Him: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and mastery, a spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. And His scent is in the fear of Yahweh.

And not by the sight of His eyes will He judge, and not by the hearing of His ears will He correct. Yet He will judge with righteousness the poor, and correct with equity for the humble of the land.” Isaiah 11:2-4 Concordant Literal

We are so humanly prone to judging by outward appearance and reasoning by our carnal minds, but that is not God’s way! When we know Him as savior, it’s the beginning of learning godly wisdom and understanding. We are covered with His righteousness and given His authority, hard won on the cross. After this initial step of faith, the Lord determines to work within us so that we become the righteousness of God, as God said we are to be, just like this Firstborn Son of many brethren.

Here’s the process of change as outlined by Peter:

“Besides this… ADD TO YOUR FAITH virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control [moderation] patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ… for so an entrance shall be ministered to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” 2 Pet. 1:5-11 KJV?

Surely this makes most clear that we are not to just accept the Lord as Savior and wait for heaven to finish the work. Hear this: the law cannot do it. The law only tries to control the flesh, which cannot enter in. He said that it is impossible for the flesh to enter in. The law is a tutor to bring us to Christ but Jesus came to bring us life and that more abundantly. He is inworking His life, His character of righteousness within us as we submit to Him to do so:

“For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be FULFILLED (or EXPRESSED) in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:2-4 KJV

Well do we know, if we have any discernment, how far we seem to fall short of His righteousness. Let us encourage each other to go on in Christ, to truly know Father God intimately. We don’t need more words of condemnation and judgment that discourage and limit us. The Lord is the discerner of the thoughts and intents of our hearts. He is aware of our heart’s longing to hit the target, to not fall short of all He intends for us to be.

We join Paul, an expert in the law of the Hebrews, in his powerful confession:

“But whatever former things were gains to me [as I thought then], these things [once regarded as advancements in merit] I have come to consider as loss [absolutely worthless] for the sake of Christ [and the purpose which He has given my life].

But more than that, I count everything as loss compared to the priceless privilege and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord [and of growing more deeply and thoroughly acquainted with Him--a joy unequaled].

For His sake I have lost everything, and I consider it all garbage, so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him [believing and relying on Him], not having any righteousness of my own derived from [my obedience to] the Law and its rituals, but [possessing] that [genuine righteousness] which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

And this, so that I may know Him [experientially, becoming more thoroughly acquainted with Him, understanding the remarkable wonders of His Person more completely] and [in that same way experience] the power of His resurrection [which overflows and is active in believers], and [that I may share] the fellowship of His sufferings, by being continually conformed [inwardly into His likeness even] to His death [dying as He did]; ]\so that I may attain to the resurrection [that will raise me] from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained it [this goal of being Christlike] or have already been made perfect, but I actively press on so that I may take hold of that [perfection] for which Christ Jesus took hold of me and made me His own. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it my own yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the [heavenly] prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature [pursuing spiritual perfection] should have this attitude. And if in any respect you have a different attitude, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us stay true to what we have already attained.” Philippians 3:7-16 Amplified

Paul says spiritual maturity is evidenced by this attitude. We are to grow up into Christ, seeking more and more daily to know Him, to yield to all He has done in the power of His resurrection working in us. We are to press on, not settle, until the fruit of His nature is seen within us. We must not mistake having revelation for possession of the knowledge of it. It is not enough to know about truth, to speak of it, to preach it, to testify about it.

We are to be Living Epistles of His life. Nothing less. There is the fruit of His harvest. It is not what we do, but what is in our hearts, the state of being within, that is the secret of perfecting faith. The outward ways we do things, the differences we may have, are not the key. It is truly about the heart. The gifts of the spirit show forth what God can do, His acts, but the fruit of the spirit is the manifestation of His very nature and being, His ways.

It is not the actions we take, but the motivating faith in our hearts to believe His promise that we shall be like Him. Do we consider ourselves the Lord Jesus Christ’s brothers and sisters? He said we are when we share His sufferings and overcome all things through Him:

“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting for God, for whom and through whom all things exist, to make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are of the same family.

So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” Hebrews 2:9-11

He establishes His rule by Love. Not force, not law, not tyranny that works fear, not condemnation, but faith through love.