You are Known by Your Fruit

[Cassia]

You are known by your fruit.

So I got to wondering what does fruit look like? In what way are we known?

Galatians 5:22
the fruit of His Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

How is it produced? By love! Love of Jesus! This is how we are known!! That's the only edification we have!

John 21:15
Then when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these? He said to Him, Yes, Lord, You know that I love You. He said to him, Feed My lambs.

Thoughts?

 

[Cassia]

Here it says peace is the fruit of righteousness

Isaiah 32:17
And the work of righteousness will be peace, And the result of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever.
Hebrews 12:11
Now no discipline at the present time seems to be a matter of joy, but of grief; but afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised by it.​

The inner nature needs God's holiness/love while righteousness shows as the outer condition that results in peace.

AND HE WILL LEAVE YOU IN PERFECT PEACE WHO'S MIND IS STAYED ON HIM.

 

[user1234]

Let brotherly love continue.
Hebrews 13:1
Love one another.
It's as plain as day.

But ..... Let us not love in word,
neither in tongue (meaning empty chitchat);
but in deed and truth. Deed and TRUTH!

First, you gotta be saved. You must be born again.
You must be saved by and in Jesus Christ and have eternal life.

THEN the fruit of the Spirit is love and all those things to follow.
1John explains it all pretty well. God is love. :hearts:

 

[Cassia]

Bearing fruit has another side too and that is childbearing. A barren woman is cursed according to biblical interpretation. Christ has sent us in His love to edify the sheep so that they will remain in Him. Paul considered himself father to many.

John 15:16
You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you.

 

[Cassia]

Another expression of fruit ...

Ephesians 5:9
For the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth,

Goodness the nature, righteousness the way, and truth of God Himself.

Matthew 19:17; Romans 5:17-18, 21; John 14:17

 

[user1234]

Bearing fruit has another side too and that is childbearing. A barren woman is cursed according to biblical interpretation.Christ has sent us in His love to edify the sheep so that they will remain in Him. Paul considered himself father to many.

Gee, that's^ a nice thing to point out, especially at this time of year. NOT!
I'll apologize on behalf of the one that made that statement (above^, in red) to any possible onlookers or seekers that may be reading along that that above statement is exactly NOT christian fruit of the Spirit.

If you, your wife, daughter, or someone you know doesnt or seemingly cant have kids, it doesnt mean you are cursed!

I know a lovely woman and her husband who feared the same thing, it just couldn't happen.
They now have a ministry with orphanages in many countries.... Poor, needy, unwanted, and orphaned children by the hundreds are being ministered to by this lovely couple and their outreaches, and when they visit different ones, the children come running with hugs and kisses.

They are like their adopted mom and dad!
Not cursed at all! Blessed beyond compare!

And as a result, many of us now get to 'sponsor' a child, who might
otherwise not have kids of our own, for a variety of reasons, none of which
has anything to do with 'God cursing us'.

Also remember Sarah and Abraham, .....so what IS now doesnt mean it will always be.
Also, Jesus had no wife and kids of His own in that sense.
Many women in the bible and through the ages didnt have kids. So what!?!
Many are saints and blessed, not cursed.

Also, any genuine child of God, any saved believer in the Lord Jesus Christ,
has been ADOPTED into the family.
And as a further proof of blessing and not curse, this is the day we as christians remember and even celebrate the day that God our Saviour Jesus went to the cross and died for our sins and the penalty and curse was removed, and as adopted children of God, we stand forgiven, cleansed, and blessed, not cursed, whether we have no kids or ten kids, are married or single.

And God can and does work miracles because of Jesus Christ our Lord.
If you are childless right now, please ignore anyone trying to tell you you're cursed, that kind of comment is not coming from the fruit of the Spirit.

Keep hope and faith alive ... The fruit of the Spirit is love, and with God, all things are possible.
It's 'Good Friday' and Easter weekend.
Time to rejoice! Jesus is Alive and Lord of All!

 

[Cassia]

Since it's expedient to interpret what the bible says so as not to be leading others astray the meaning was to the bride of Christ not to be barren. That Paul was father of many but afaik was childless served as a great blessing to him.

 

[Cassia]

Have a great Ressurrection Weekend and enjoy it in the fruit of the Spirit. Pentecost is coming soon. The Birth of the Church!

 

[Rens]

Bearing fruit has another side too and that is childbearing. A barren woman is cursed according to biblical interpretation. Christ has sent us in His love to edify the sheep so that they will remain in Him. Paul considered himself father to many.

Yes good one. Sunday Adelaja once locked himself up for a few weeks with God. He said: you get kids when there's intimacy.
Spiritual kids. We have one evangelist couple here who never could get kids, but they have a lot of spiritual kids.

 

[Cassia]

Yes good one. Sunday Adelaja once locked himself up for a few weeks with God. He said: you get kids when there's intimacy.
Spiritual kids. We have one evangelist couple here who never could get kids, but they have a lot of spiritual kids.

Spiritual kids is what the post was about. Thank you. The fruit of the Spirit is in an addition to the body of Christ thru multiplication of the seed sown into good ground. All are aspects of the fruit of the Spirit.

 

[atpollard]

Let's talk about barren women. However, just for fun, let's talk about what the Bible (God) actually has to say on the subject:

Exodus 23:20-26 [NIV] “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out. Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces. Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.

Some quick observations. First this blessing was given to the people under the covenant of Moses concerning blessings from God for faithful obedience and trust as they entered the land God had given them for a home. Among the blessings were that there would be no miscarriages or barren women in the promised land. Since we are not the people whose fathers God led out of Egypt into the land of Canan, let me point out that this world is not our home. We are temporary travelers just passing through. However, God has also promised us a home. There is a land that God has promised will belong to us. Remember Jesus words, "In my Father's house there are many mansions and I go to prepare a place for you". Our blessings will come when we enter our promised land, not while we are wandering through the desert of this temporary life in a fallen world.

Above and beyond this, we have been adopted into a new family. We are the sons and daughters of God. Jesus also promised that anyone who gave up parents and siblings and children for God, will be blessed with 100 times as many both in this life and the next. That is what being the Church means.


Judges 13:1-5 [NIV] Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

Here we have the mother of Samson. Notice the first line. In contrast to the earlier blessing, we have a statement that the nation had done evil and the nation was under judgement and a curse. Thus the curse of barrenness was not on the woman for her sin, but on the nation for its sin. From the story and the actions and reactions of the mother, her wisdom and Proverbs 31 character shines through. Thus we come to the announcement concerning her barrenness. It was not presented as a curse, but a statement of fact and the important point was to see that God was going to take it away. The child born to a barren womb was the Judge God had chosen to raise up to deliver Israel.

Since this topic is about fruit, the claim to fame of Samson's mother was not giving birth. To be crass, the world is full of 14-18 year old girls pushing out babies without a clue how to raise them. The real achievement of Samson's mother was raising a Nazarite son in an occupied, apostate nation. That is a spiritual achievement worthy of praise and has nothing to do with the ability to have a baby. To spiritualized it a little further, I wonder how many Christians are Spiritually barren, having no spiritual children to pass on what the lord has entrusted to us into their lives and growth? I know that my walk with Jesus is indebted to those who invested the time to teach and encourage me ... my spiritual parents. Am I passing it on?


1 Samuel 2:4-5 [NIV] “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry are hungry no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away.

This prayer from Hannah was about God granting to a women who could have no children, the birth of Samuel and her promise to dedicate him to the Lord. Again the sin was not to be found in Hannah, but in Eli (the High Priest) and his sons. Barrenness is again shown to be a sign of punishment on a nation, not the individual, and once again the point is that God blessed the women who could have no children with a child. In the case of Samuel, the story is even more powerful since the woman who bore Samual was not to raise him. Instead she visited him only at the time of sacrifices. As Christians, we are called to 'gossip the Gospel' and spread the word of what we have found to those we meet. If we are doing this, then we will be giving birth to spiritual children. Children we may help to train ourselves, and children that we may be called to give to God and trust that God will provide another to train up our children. The important thing, is to choose not to be spiritually barren. To take and give nothing back. That is the real shame and curse of the modern Church.


Proverbs 30: 15b-16 [NIV] “There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’

The point of this proverb is that the barren womb is never satisfied. Simply put, a woman who desires a child and cannot have one never stops desiring to have a child. As someone married to a woman that the Mayo Clinic said could never have children, I can tell you that this is true. We spent years counting days to chart fertility cycles and ignoring advice that it was almost impossible for her to conceive and dealing with warnings about the danger to her life that a full term pregnancy represented and tales that she would be hospitalized and bedridden for most of the third trimester, and the exhilaration of the first ultrasound images and the heartbreak of the miscarriages ... through it all TERESA kept a verse taped to the refrigerator. The verse we prayed every day. Our family verse ...

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psa 37:4)

Since this is a topic about our fruit, this is a verse that speaks to barrenness and the endurance of HOPE. As Christians, we are alone in the world as the only people with any real reason to have hope. After all, a dead man got up and walked and said that we could do it too! Anything is possible with God.

So those are my thoughts on barren wombs and our fruit.
Have a blessed Resurection Sunday.

 

[Romanos]

ADMIN POST

A large cleanup within this topic has been done. Please take note if your post is missing that it was removed in the cleanup. Let us remember to be respectful to each other and if you disagree with one another, you can do so without attacking others, or feel free to use the ignore function.​

 

[popsthebuilder]

This is a good subject, and multifaceted.

First, we know doing works for the sight of man or speaking of them is wrong. If we are Christians then all is for GOD. As such, what need is there to speak of them or to do it in a manner or with the desire to be seen? It isn't both. One can do works in the sight of man, but to do them for the sight of man, or reward/ repayment of any kind is wrong. Yet still; we are known by man by our works, as surely anyone can be a hypocrite, and GOD knows the secrets of the heart before they are carried out. So we see; it is a seemingly fine line/ narrow path, one chooses to walk, for the sake of creation, and not for self.

Sorry if I shouldn't post my own opinion here. People seem slightly touchy lately. Me not being an exception by any means.

Just figured I'd attempt to get the thread back rolling.

Please feel free to disagree with me in whatever fashion you see fit, but be warned; I may call you out on particular behaviours.

peace



Sent from my Alcatel_6055U using Tapatalk

 

[MoreCoffee]

Discernment takes some time and a lot of wisdom. I am not so sure that fruit will tell what sort of heart a person has but it may be taken as an indicator. The role of wisdom in discerning what fruit implies is subtle and time consuming. I think it is best to avoid condemning anybody until it is abundantly clear that wickedness is at work in their plans and acts.

 

[psalms 91]

It is best to be guided by the Holy Spirit since our wisdom means nothing

 

[Rens]

I always got so tired of those preachings in church about fruit. Depends how they say it. It sounded like: produce fruit!! produce fruit!! or you're no good!! It made me want to take a basket with bananas and apples to church.

A good thing they said was: what's in comes out. If you squeeze toothpaste, what comes out? Toothpaste. So if you squeeze someone and pain comes out pain was in lolz. It's always good if filth comes out, that's what you get when you heat up the gold. It gets out so He can take it away.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It is best to be guided by the Holy Spirit since our wisdom means nothing

If anyone lacks wisdom let him ask and it shall be given but ask without wavering because a man who wavers is like a wave on the surface of the sea blown about by the winds and such a man is blown around by every shifting wind of doctrine.

 

[Cassia]

Let's talk about barren women. However, just for fun, let's talk about what the Bible (God) actually has to say on the subject:

I love the thoughts that you have put into this whole post atpollard! I hope you don't mind if I add my thoughts to it because it really does tell a whole story, and these are mere sidenotes.

Exodus 23:20-26 [NIV] “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. ...Worship the LORD your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.

Our food and water come from God's blessings with fruitation as part of that blessing. A full life span seems to be a promise of bringing His people to maturity in the good land. I think that can be construed as a promise that includes both Judaism and Christianity. The first verse reminds me of how the Holy Spirit leads us.

Some quick observations. First this blessing was given to the people under the covenant of Moses concerning blessings from God for faithful obedience and trust as they entered the land God had given them for a home. Among the blessings were that there would be no miscarriages or barren women in the promised land. Since we are not the people whose fathers God led out of Egypt into the land of Canan, let me point out that this world is not our home. We are temporary travelers just passing through. However, God has also promised us a home. There is a land that God has promised will belong to us. Remember Jesus words, "In my Father's house there are many mansions and I go to prepare a place for you". Our blessings will come when we enter our promised land, not while we are wandering through the desert of this temporary life in a fallen world.

We are His temple so in a sense abiding in Him is part of that many room mansion that became available to us after the resurrection but wasn't made available before that. In Him and Him in us is a huge expansion of God's ability in His people.

Above and beyond this, we have been adopted into a new family. We are the sons and daughters of God. Jesus also promised that anyone who gave up parents and siblings and children for God, will be blessed with 100 times as many both in this life and the next. That is what being the Church means.

Great point. I think that may be something that we won't be aware of until He tells us. The sheep never even knew when they had given Him food to eat or water to drink.

Judges 13:1-5 [NIV] Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, so the LORD delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for forty years.
A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was childless, unable to give birth. The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, “You are barren and childless, but you are going to become pregnant and give birth to a son. Now see to it that you drink no wine or other fermented drink and that you do not eat anything unclean. You will become pregnant and have a son whose head is never to be touched by a razor because the boy is to be a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.”

Yes, Nazirites can be men or women pledged to the service of God. Found in Numbers 6:2.
"Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When either men or women make a special vow, the vow of a nazirite, to separate themselves to the Lord,"

One of the most overlooked passages of the bible.

Here we have the mother of Samson. Notice the first line. In contrast to the earlier blessing, we have a statement that the nation had done evil and the nation was under judgement and a curse. Thus the curse of barrenness was not on the woman for her sin, but on the nation for its sin. From the story and the actions and reactions of the mother, her wisdom and Proverbs 31 character shines through. Thus we come to the announcement concerning her barrenness. It was not presented as a curse, but a statement of fact and the important point was to see that God was going to take it away. The child born to a barren womb was the Judge God had chosen to raise up to deliver Israel.

Exactly. Just as God dealt with nations He now deals with the Body thru the Church. The first sentence of the first quote from Exodus 23 says "I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him." We have the Holy Spirit guarding us along the way that we need to heed.

Since this topic is about fruit, the claim to fame of Samson's mother was not giving birth. To be crass, the world is full of 14-18 year old girls pushing out babies without a clue how to raise them. The real achievement of Samson's mother was raising a Nazarite son in an occupied, apostate nation. That is a spiritual achievement worthy of praise and has nothing to do with the ability to have a baby. To spiritualized it a little further, I wonder how many Christians are Spiritually barren, having no spiritual children to pass on what the lord has entrusted to us into their lives and growth? I know that my walk with Jesus is indebted to those who invested the time to teach and encourage me ... my spiritual parents. Am I passing it on?

Amen

1 Samuel 2:4-5 [NIV] “The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry are hungry no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines

We can see this in Galations 4:26-28 I think
But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. For it is written,
“Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,
burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs;
for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous
than the children of the one who is married.”
Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.

This prayer from Hannah was about God granting to a women who could have no children, the birth of Samuel and her promise to dedicate him to the Lord. Again the sin was not to be found in Hannah, but in Eli (the High Priest) and his sons. Barrenness is again shown to be a sign of punishment on a nation, not the individual, and once again the point is that God blessed the women who could have no children with a child. In the case of Samuel, the story is even more powerful since the woman who bore Samual was not to raise him. Instead she visited him only at the time of sacrifices. As Christians, we are called to 'gossip the Gospel' and spread the word of what we have found to those we meet. If we are doing this, then we will be giving birth to spiritual children. Children we may help to train ourselves, and children that we may be called to give to God and trust that God will provide another to train up our children. The important thing, is to choose not to be spiritually barren. To take and give nothing back. That is the real shame and curse of the modern Church.

Hannah is amazing! She was the first person to speak of Christ as the 'anointed' And it's that anointing that gives birth. 1 John speaks of the followers of Christ in that Way.

Proverbs 30: 15b-16 [NIV] “There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, ‘Enough!’: the grave, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, ‘Enough!’

The point of this proverb is that the barren womb is never satisfied. Simply put, a woman who desires a child and cannot have one never stops desiring to have a child. As someone married to a woman that the Mayo Clinic said could never have children, I can tell you that this is true. We spent years counting days to chart fertility cycles and ignoring advice that it was almost impossible for her to conceive and dealing with warnings about the danger to her life that a full term pregnancy represented and tales that she would be hospitalized and bedridden for most of the third trimester, and the exhilaration of the first ultrasound images and the heartbreak of the miscarriages ... through it all TERESA kept a verse taped to the refrigerator.

Thank you for sharing that. I'm sure everyone has felt that in loved ones that have had trouble conceiving. God bless each and everyone.

The verse we prayed every day. Our family verse ...
"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psa 37:4)Since this is a topic about our fruit, this is a verse that speaks to barrenness and the endurance of HOPE. As Christians, we are alone in the world as the only people with any real reason to have hope. After all, a dead man got up and walked and said that we could do it too! Anything is possible with God.

So those are my thoughts on barren wombs and our fruit.
Have a blessed Resurection Sunday.

Thank God for our blessed Hope in Christ Jesus our Lord! Have a blessed Resurection Sunday, too

 

[Cassia]

This is a good subject, and multifaceted.

First, we know doing works for the sight of man or speaking of them is wrong. If we are Christians then all is for GOD. As such, what need is there to speak of them or to do it in a manner or with the desire to be seen? It isn't both. One can do works in the sight of man, but to do them for the sight of man, or reward/ repayment of any kind is wrong. Yet still; we are known by man by our works, as surely anyone can be a hypocrite, and GOD knows the secrets of the heart before they are carried out. So we see; it is a seemingly fine line/ narrow path, one chooses to walk, for the sake of creation, and not for self.

Sorry if I shouldn't post my own opinion here. People seem slightly touchy lately. Me not being an exception by any means.

Just figured I'd attempt to get the thread back rolling.

Please feel free to disagree with me in whatever fashion you see fit, but be warned; I may call you out on particular behaviours.

peace



Sent from my Alcatel_6055U using Tapatalk

For the sake of creation and not for self.... :amen:

 

[user1234]

I always got so tired of those preachings in church about fruit. Depends how they say it. It sounded like: produce fruit!! produce fruit!! or you're no good!! It made me want to take a basket with bananas and apples to church.

A good thing they said was: what's in comes out. If you squeeze toothpaste, what comes out? Toothpaste. So if you squeeze someone and pain comes out pain was in lolz. It's always good if filth comes out, that's what you get when you heat up the gold. It gets out so He can take it away.

:=D: LOL And tomatoes, too!
There's good and bad possible with this, though.
As far as the squeezing ..... Some ppl take it upon themselves to act like they're squeezing with 'good intentions' when what they're really doing is seeing if they can get a reaction out of you, to try to prove you're somehow not good enough. It's a superiority game to feed their own egos.
As MoreCoffee rightly states below, it takes discernment to see through it.
It's easy to fall victim to it, though, as it can be very subtle. But, yes, there's far too many fruit inspectors, (there shouldnt be any, really) and not enough mirrors.

Discernment takes some time and a lot of wisdom. I am not so sure that fruit will tell what sort of heart a person has but it may be taken as an indicator. The role of wisdom in discerning what fruit implies is subtle and time consuming. I think it is best to avoid condemning anybody until it is abundantly clear that wickedness is at work in their plans and acts.

On the other hand, when they say that's what they do, have a history of it, and show no true remorse, it should be fairly clear, and should come as no big surprise. ... There's not ALWAYS a need for heavy-duty discernment, just some common sense.