Spirit-Grown Joy

Achieving lasting change in your life ain't easy. You want to ditch some bad habit and replace it with a good one, but what a struggle that can be. Yep, producing lasting fruit in your life - good fruit - is quite the challenge! Fruit's a great way to understand the good things we want to cultivate in our lives. Because we know, inherently, that fruit is good. I mean, strawberries, raspberries, and figs are wonderful, aren't they – beautiful, sweet, bursting with promise. And yet, their beauty is short-lived. Strawberries begin to spoil within a day, raspberries collapse into mould almost overnight, and figs last scarcely longer. Their sweetness fades as quickly as it appears. It's the same with the joy we so long for - fleeting, fragile, gone before you know it. But here, the Apostle Paul speaks of a different kind of fruit … the sort that lasts. Galatians 5:22-23 … the fruit that the Spirit produces in a person's life is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That's quite the list, and prominent amongst it is the fruit of joy, because frankly, unless you're enjoying them, new habits are impossible to sustain, wouldn't you agree? Like strawberries, raspberries and figs, every item on that list is inherently good. But would you please notice with me that the fruit Paul speaks of isn't fruit that we grow out of our own strength, but the fruit that the Spirit produces in our lives. And right up there, amidst all the good fruit that God wants to cultivate in your life … is joy. Complete, abundant, eternal joy. That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.