Fruits of the Spirit. Want a particular one? Sorry, it may not work that way.

Galatians 5:22-26 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I know a couple of things from just buying fruit from the grocery store:

• Some fruits ripen very quickly and others take much longer on or off the vine or tree.
• When you put a piece of ripe fruit in a bag with unripe fruit it accelerates the ripening process.

I just had a couple of revelations surrounding this verse to share:

Revelation #1: These are the fruits of the Spirit of God, not the spirit of man or the flesh. You can bite your tongue, shield your eyes, raise your hands in praise, and serve others selflessly in the flesh and appear to have the fruits of the Spirit to others and maybe even yourself, but it’s a farce. The fruits are present when we walk in God’s Spirit and allow the Spirit to guide our hearts and minds with consistency.

Revelation #2: While a Greek scholar might argue with me, I think I’ve stumbled upon something important. Look at the fruits. Look at the order of the fruits. And then start looking at the fruits as foundational for the next fruits in the sentence. For example:

We know God is Love. So the first fruit of the Spirit is naturally Love.

When we truly experience God’s love, it produces the next fruit, Joy!

When we are experiencing God’s love and joy, it produces peace.

When we are experiencing God’s love, joy, and peace, we gain patience.

See where I’m going with this? We will see the next fruit in our lives when we are currently enjoying all the fruits stated prior to it as a firm foundation.

The fruits aren’t a la carte like the grocery store. We can’t pick and choose which one we want the most in our character at the moment. The good thing is that the fruits of the Spirit are always in God’s grocery store if we’re using our Spirit card with which to purchase them, and they’re given to us as a fruit basket of sorts.

So today, ask for God’s Spirit to permeate you to a depth where you experience his incredible love for you. When you stop crying, you’ll realize those are tears of joy and you’ll begin to feel at peace inside about all the stuff you cannot control…. And in short order you’ll be revealing all nine of the Spirit’s fruits in your life, mind, and heart.