TEEN TREE 
OF LIFE
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Part 1
May 26, 2019
Before you begin, ask yourself a very important question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins? If you answered yes, you will need to be sure that you are filled with The Holy Spirit. How do you do this? You name your sins to God The Father in His Son’s Name. This is called rebound. As a Christian, you must rebound any time you sin. This is taught in 1JOHN 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now, if you have never believed that Jesus Christ died on The Cross for all of your sins, all you have to do is say to yourself that you believe in Him and you are saved! The Bible verse which teaches us this is ACTS 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.”
Have you ever wondered why God doesn’t just beam us up, to be with Him in Heaven, the moment we’ve made the decision to personally believe in His Son – Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? At this point in your Christian walk, you have to have wondered what His reasons are for leaving us here on planet earth. One reason is found in JOH 15:16: You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear [produce] fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.
But what is “fruit” and how do we “bear [produce]” it? The “fruit” is what God The Holy Spirit produces in the life of the believer who carries out God’s Pre-Designed Plan. His Plan must be carried out through the Filling of The Holy Spirit and the consistent study of Bible doctrine. The Filling of The Holy Spirit is our status quo as believers when God The Holy Spirit controls our souls. When He does, we are 100% spiritual. This is taught in EPH 5:18 (The Message Bible): Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him.
Our goal, as believers, is to make it from Salvation to spiritual maturity and it’s impossible to do it without being filled with The Holy Spirit and studying Bible doctrine. At the moment of Salvation, God The Holy Spirit indwells the body of the believer permanently: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever… (JOH 14:16)
We have learned that our bodies are the headquarters of the old sin nature. Our old sin natures will live inside of us as long as we are on planet earth. But thankfully, The Holy Spirit sets up His Headquarters in believers’ bodies in order to counterbalance their old sin natures. When you sin (and everybody has sinned and will sin throughout his/her life), you need a way to get back into fellowship with God. And as we’ve known, the only way to do this is to name and cite our known sins to God in His Son’s Name. This is called Rebound and is the first Problem-Solving Device (tool). Rebound is found in 1JOH 1:9: If we confess [name] our sins [directly to God], He [God] is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It’s important to note that this verse is not a command. Notice that God, because He is a Perfect Gentleman, gives us the choice: “if we confess.” He leaves it up to us – maybe we will and maybe we won’t rebound. The plain truth is we should rebound, or we won’t be in fellowship with Him and we will not produce The Fruit of The Spirit.
The battlefield for believers is in their souls. Because of this, it’s vital that we use rebound to give The Holy Spirit control of our souls. When we do, He is able to influence, control and mentor us. The Indwelling of The Holy Spirit is permanent; but the Filling of The Holy Spirit is temporary. This is because we lose the Filling of The Holy Spirit when we sin.
So, God The Holy Spirit produces “the fruit.” But what is God’s Pre-Designed Plan? Well, God has Supreme Authority to rule over all He creates. In Eternity Past, as The Supreme Ruler, God provided us, as believers, everything we will ever need to carry out His Plan, Purpose, and Will for our lives. But, again, as with Rebound, God never interferes with our free will. God has designed a plan for each believer, which we can accept by faith or reject by negative volition. Negative volition is basically choosing God or Satan or choosing the Narrow or the Wide Gate, as we learned in our last study.
GAL 5:22-23 teaches us about The Fruit of The Holy Spirit: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Our Perfect example of how to bear (produce) fruit is Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us the Power to produce fruit. We can produce incredibly great fruit because, as believers, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit are always with us.
The apostle Paul said in ROM 7:4: Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God. What God intended for Christians was not just to believe in His Son, but also to change. If we remain the same kind of persons we were before we become believers, we’ll produce the same kind of rotten fruit as we did before we were saved.
It matters very much to God whether or not we produce fruit. It’s not God’s intention for us to skip through life. LA, LA, LA, LA LAHH! God made us unique creatures. He gave us unique gifts. He also gave us a command to bear fruit: My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. (JOH 15:8) Remember – we’re on earth to glorify God so this is a very important command to follow!
Look at JOH 15:1-2, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every [branch] that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit.” God The Father is extremely happy when His children produce fruit! And who wouldn’t want Our Heavenly Father to be happy??? He doesn’t want to have vines that are bare. That’s where the pruning comes in because gardeners and farmers prune fruit trees in order to make them produce more fruit. He wants the branches to become full of fruit because it benefits us. You can’t become a mature believer unless you produce fruit. So, if you consider yourself a Christian and there is no sign of fruit in your life, there’s something wrong!
So, what is this ‘fruit’ that God commands us to “bear [produce]”? And what does it look like? You’ll recognize that you have produced fruit, when your life has changed. When you study God’s Word and apply it to your life while being Filled with The Holy Spirit, there will be a change in your life! You aren’t living the true Christian way of life, if there is no continuous change. As you mature spiritually, your life should become centered on Our and Savior Jesus Christ. Your life should become one, in which, you have done away with your old ways so that Christ lives in you. Paul explains these changes in his own life in GAL 2:19-20 (The Message Bible): “What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.”
God works to mold us into something useful. How you turn out in life has a lot to do with how you respond to His molding you: But now, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; and all of us are the work of your hand. (ISA 64:8) Isaiah is painting us a picture of our relationship with God. He compares God to a Potter working to mold a lump of clay and we are the lumps of clay!!
In ROM 9:23, Paul uses the same analogy as Isaiah, to teach us about God’s Authority over us and how He uses us for His own purpose. Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? We should never make the mistake of believing that ROM 9:23 somehow gives us an easy way out and allows us to explain away sin. The old “God- made-me-this-way” excuse just doesn’t cut it. We are clay in God’s hands, but we also have volition (free will). If you make the wrong choices in life, you can’t blame God! Look at EPH 2:10: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. To walk in good works means to live a life centered around Jesus Christ. God doesn’t want you to live your life being a Christian in name only.
As a Christian, you have to learn how to stay in His Plan. Being filled with the Holy Spirit (rebound) is only the first step. You have to work toward having the thinking (or the Mind) of Christ. This helps you to make choices like Our Savior did. You have to make the choice to stay in God’s Plan and to produce fruit. Remember if you sin and are out of His plan, you are still saved. You CANNOT lose your salvation. But when you sin, you’re not spiritually healthy. And because of this, God’s going to discipline you. It’s a form of pruning you. Pruning is when branches or twigs are removed from a plant or tree so that it becomes stronger and healthier. It helps the plant or tree grow more. God prunes us by allowing bad things to happen to us. Let’s face it – if everything went well all the time, you’d never grow. He wants you to grow so you’ll produce lots of fruit. God’s pruning and His Discipline helps you to grow! And when you grow as a Christian, you’re able to produce The Fruit of The Spirit.
{to be continued}