Built to SucSeedSample

Day 5: Watch Your Fruit:
Welcome back to day 5! Today, we are discussing how to grow good fruit and avoid damaged fruit.

Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Scripture teaches us that these are not individual “fruits” from which we pick and choose. Rather, the fruit of the Spirit is one ninefold “fruit” that characterizes all who truly walk in the Holy Spirit. Collectively, these are the fruits that all Christians should produce in their new lives with Jesus Christ.

When you are a tree, and you are bearing fruit, everything that comes out of you should help a person live. Your actions and words should provide life. If what you say and what you do is tearing people down, killing them mentally, and harming them emotionally, then you can’t be plant-based. You can’t be a tree because trees bear oxygen, and oxygen provides life. It gives off what God gives off. So, when you are destroying people’s lives, making them miserable, then you may be a dead thing.

And you’ll need to stay far away from coming into contact with other dead things.

One healthy piece of fruit goes bad because it is in the proximity of a bad piece of fruit or one that has been damaged. Damaged fruit damages good fruit. You may believe that you will come out okay consistently being around people who are damaged, but the truth is there is always residue left in your spirit. You will be easily swayed between opinions, doctrines, and beliefs. Consequently, the way you worship will be influenced.

The book of Jeremiah is a great example of this. The worship of Asherah and Baal involved rituals and ceremonies centered around erected trees. Baal was a male spirit, and Asherah was a statue representing the female counterpart of Baal. The Israelites would gather in groves or high places, often under the shade of these trees, to offer sacrifices, make offerings, and engage in various acts of worship. So, in pagan worship, they would take parts of a tree and place them at the altar. This was symbolic of replacing the sons and daughters of God, who are supposed to be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, which directly opposed God’s order of worship (Deuteronomy 16:21).

Pagan worshippers believed these rituals would ensure favorable harvests, bountiful crops, and overall prosperity. This spirit of Baal will bless you to blind you. He will give you rights in perversion, make you worship or accept something that goes against God, and then call it right.

While trees can be beautiful representations of God’s creation, their use in pagan rituals and idolatrous practices is contrary to the worship of the one true God. In the same way, believers must remain vigilant in their devotion, avoiding any form of idolatry and, instead, directing our worship solely towards the Almighty. You can’t worship until you are walking in truth.

If you are worshiping Jesus for real, then you will drink from living water. Jesus satisfies me. When He satisfies you, you will keep coming back to HIM. You will keep showing up for Him. You will love Him through the rough times because you can’t get enough of Him!