******Beginning today and continuing for several more Fridays there will be a special study on the “fruit of the Spirit” by Serena DeGarmo.******

The other day I brought home a bag of fresh mixed fruit. I like to keep healthy food in reach for all the snackers in my house. I usually just dump the fruit into a big bowl that sits on the counter.

So as normal I did that. The next morning as I staggered into the kitchen for my morning coffee, I was greeted by a swarm of fruit flies. And I hate fruit flies.

It took me a minute to gather myself and figure out what was going on and what the main attraction was for these buggy buffet seekers.

Then I found it, the rotten apple. It was covered in fruit flies.

The apple was obviously rotting long before I tossed it into my fruit bowl.

It’s no wonder Jesus says, “Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire” (Mt. 3:10).

Rotten fruit is not only useless, it is a mess. Its rottenness attracts more mess.
It is like that with our lives isn’t it? When our fruit is rotten we attract more mess.

Sometimes we sit in our messy lives and blame, deny, begrudge and resent, but we are the ones who neglected to check our fruit. We haven’t taken account of the fruit that our own heart is bearing.

We have sown the seeds of discord, pride, disobedience and judgment. Then we wonder why we have a mess around us. We wonder why our children are rebellious, our husbands are distant and our friendships provide more conflict than connection. Our lives are filled with stress and chaos and our relationships are anything but Spirit-filled.

But we are called to bear good fruit aren’t we?

“A tree is identified by its fruit. If a tree is good, its fruit will be good. If a tree is bad, its fruit will be bad…Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions” (Mt. 12:33; 7:20).

We are called to bear fruit of the Spirit.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Sisters, we need to sow and bear fruit of the Holy Spirit of God. Join me in this series with some self-examination. Let’s inspect our own fruit. Let’s see what will the fruit of the Spirit look like when it is mature and ripe in your life.

–Serena DeGarmo