PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Matthew 3:7-12
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Matthew 3:8)
John challenges the religious leaders for wanting to be baptized.
He sees past their religious performance to their unchanged hearts.
The fruit on their branches reveals what kind of tree they really are.
They are very holy according to the law, but not according to the intent of the law.
What is the good fruit that John means, that the Spirit of Jesus will baptize us with?
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ” (Galatians 5:22-23)
This is what God wants to see in us, and what Jesus both demonstrates and demands.
This is the fruit that fits with repentance, and not just keeping the rules.
I’ve seen irreligious people with this kind of fruit, yet the church often rebukes them.
The people coming to John were also irreligious people, and John baptized them.
It was the so-called holy religious people that John challenged, and Jesus too.
‘Stop just keeping and enforcing the rules, and find out what really matters to God!’
Spend time with this list of the fruit of the Spirit – is this the fruit growing in our lives?
PRAYER
Lord, your Spirit is working powerfully in me to produce this kind of fruit. I can’t produce this fruit myself, but with your help I can grow it more and more!
No hypocrite need apply! John saw through the people who thought they were good enough on their own – people who did not take up his baptism of repentance. I too need to repent – because I am not good enough. Jesus comes with the gift of the HS – and he helps me to live a life following him. On my own I am not good enough but with him I am! Lord help me to repent of thinking I can do it on my own! Lead me, guide me along the way!
Good fruit.
One is known by the words and deeds one does.
God desires to see the fruit of the Spirit from His people and that is only a possibility when we/I am rooted in Him, rooted by the stream of living water, living for Jesus today and always.
Thanksliving.
The Fruit of the Spirit’s not a watermelon
The Fruit of the Spirit’s not a watermelon
You want to be a watermelon
You might as well hear it:
You can’t be a fruit of the Spirit
Cause the fruit is
Love, joy, peace, patience
Kindness, goodness, faithfulness
Gentleness and self-control
Love, joy, peace, patience
Kindness, goodness, faithfulness
Gentleness and self-control