Forty Days Full - An Invitation To Real Life

Day Twenty-One: Evidence of the Spirit

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” ( Galatians 5:22-23 NIV)

T here are many excellent spiritual activities. Reading my bible, praying, worshiping and giving; just to mention a few. These are essentials for someone who wants to grow in Christ. But you can fake it! Just because I do these things doesn’t necessarily make me spiritual and it doesn't always change my life. Have you ever met someone like this? On the outside they look good. They do all the right things. They have all the Christian lingo down. But their life is a paradox. It seems they live two lives. There's the one they want their church friends to see and the one lived in the world. It's called hypocrisy. The house that I grew up in had a crab apple tree in the front yard. It had beautiful flowers that appeared in the spring, but the fruit it produced tasted horrible! I remember as a kid, trying to eat the fruit and being very upset. It was called a crab APPLE tree. In my mind, a tree with the word apple in it, should produce fruit that taste good. That is generally our understanding of fruit, it should be good to eat! I don't even know why we have crab apple trees! This is kind of like believers who have no visible or tangible fruit in their life. They may have gone to church for years, but they're mean, critical and crabby. They should be bearing good fruit as the evidence of a changed life. They should be a joy to be around, but instead they repel. I think that spending time with Jesus should make