Lesson 24: Bearing the Right Fruit
Read Galatians 5:1-26 - www.bible.com/bible/59/gal.5
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Our last lesson showed us what happens in our life when we try to be the captain of our own soul. This lesson shows us how we can be all the good things we dream of being, and gain this without being perfect.


In Ephesians 5:18 we read how to have this fruit of the Spirit of God in our life. It is given to us as a contrast so we can understand. It says we are not to be drunk with wine but to be filled with the Spirit. First, being drunk can be a one-time thing but it will not last very long. Drinking a lot of wine or other alcohol may make us drunk for a few hours, but the effect wears off quickly. So to stay drunk you must keep on drinking alcohol.

In the same way, we sometimes seek His presence in our life and are filled with His Spirit, giving us a wonderful experience with Him. But it is often short-lived because we do not know how to STAY there. To know how to stay in this “filled” existence, we first need to know how we got there. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? It means we have given Him conscious control of our life. Giving Him this control does not mean we enter a constant state of ecstasy; it means we let Him tell us what to do. May I remind you to look at the list above to see what the fruit of the Spirit is? Speaking in other languages or preaching or teaching are not there – these are GIFTS of the Spirit rather than fruit of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10).

Fruit of the Spirit is what happens in your life when you give yourself to Him completely and obey His every guidance in your life. Just as an apple tree cannot decide what kind of apple it will bear or when that apple has budded or begins to grow, so we also cannot choose when or how the fruit of the Spirit is displayed in our life. It is not the branch of the tree that decides where the fruit comes up, but the sap in the tree which pushes the bud into growth. When we give the Spirit complete control of our life as the tree gives the sap control, the fruit will come.

 *What fruit of the Spirit do you see in your life today, that you did not see there a month or a year ago?