The Gardener's Touch

The main ingredients in our fruit are based on our relationship to God.

Love: is like good seed introduced into good soil, it must come from a source outside the garden. It does not, nor can it ever, spring from the soil of our own souls. Agape Love is God's love bestowed on us through His Son. I can only have this kind of love as far as I am connected to and have God in my life. Love is the fruit that is found in all the other fruit (1 Cor. 13:1-7). Without Love, the other fruit cannot be fully functional and productive - it will lack that "sweetening" agent. If we have love, it never fails to produce (1 Cor. 13:8).

Beth Moore explains Agape love in her study on the fruit in the following ways:
* Agape is divine capacity to love. Only God is capable of agape.
* Agape is more a response than a feeling (1 John 3:20 - God is greater than our hearts)
* Agape is fueled by the needs rather than the desires of self or others
* Agape is expressed through me when I surrender to the empowerment and temperament of the Holy Spirit.

Joy: Is "delight - gladness" that is not based on circumstances - Heb. 12:2
The word happiness is found 6 times in NT, and 16 times in OT. Joy shows up 8 x more than happiness in Scripture (176 times). Joy is the grand attributes of God Himself - "God of all Joy". Too often we are looking for joy when we should just be looking towards Jesus Christ - our joy is in Him... not in anything else we can find.

Check out the types of joy that God provides: We are never lacking for joy when we look for it in the right places.
* Joy of salvation - Psalm 51:12a
* Joy of problems - James 1:12
* Joy of worship - Psalm 12 2:1
* Joy of today - Psalm 118:24
* Joy of restoration - Psalm 71:20/Psalm 23:3
* Joy of prayer - John 16:24/Psalm 16:11b
* Joy of God's Word - Psalm 119:111

Peace: is not the absence of problems, but the presence of Jesus in the midst of problems. The fruit of peace is love standing strong and stable in spite of every insult, antagonism and every hate. We are at peace with God (Romans 5:1), we are given the peace of God (Phil. 4:7), which equips us to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18), or at least do our part to be a peace with everyone (Romans 14:19). I love this statement: He who throws dirt only loses ground. Let us keep our soil in our godly garden!

Do you need to cultivate the fruit of Love, Joy and Peace? First we need to take a long hard look at ourselves, then cry out to God to change and do what He needs to do to sweeten our fruit, and finally we need to get out of the way (kill the flesh) and give God control. We need to let Him in our fields and hand over the keys to the plow. Being plowed by God will transform your life, your relationships and your attitudes. Allow God to come in and establish His fruit in your life.

Lynne Jahns
Christian Counselor
Director, KESWICK Institute of Biblical Studies

DIGGING DEEPER
James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness."