How Fruity Are You???

I was asked to pray about a situation. One friend was hurt because her friend was angry and would not say why. The friend who asked me to pray was wounded and searching her heart for what she had done wrong. This expanded somthing I had been mulling over for a couple of years.

I picked the orchards in the Hood River Valley on purpose. Home!

So many people do not realize that the fruit of the spirit is their garden to care for in life. A lot of people just “hope” that their fruit magically appears. They do not actually cultivate that fruit. The fruit is for anyone they come in contact with not for their own consumption. It is for family, friends, the body of Christ and strangers in the streets. Once they eat of the fruit of your fruit trees they have seed implanted that will grow their own trees. This is the same as the secular “Random acts of kindness” movement.

Which one would you pick?

The thing is, we overlook or ignore the spiritual bad fruit.

Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. Proverbs 13:20

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.” I Corinthians 15:33

When you compromise who you are by who you “hang” out with it is to your detriment. Just like you share your Godly fruit with others, you also partake of the fruit of your friends. If they have bad fruit you end up with bad seed.

I see so many Christians in turmoil and they do not realize they have eaten bad fruit and they are reproducing. They are emotional, tossed to and fro by their moods, any negative mental suggestion. They become judgmental, critical, verbally abusive, victimized…..and so on.

One of the problems in this (just one mind you) is that the Christian friend, sheep, family etc. who is the recipient of these outbursts begin to wonder what is wrong with them.

Here is an example: I got an email once (ok, more than once but we will just talk about the one) that was VILE.  At that point, I realized VILE and EVIL are the same word….Selah. In this email I was told I was unloving, cold, calculating, abusive, bold, arrogant, ungodly, a liar, a thief….you get the drift. When I read it the first time I heard the Lord say, “This is not you.” So, I read it logically like I do most things. I read the first accusation and took it to the throne. “Do I do this? Do I need to repent from anything in this?” I did this with every item.

The enemy is he is deceptive. He NEVER hits you straight on. He is not creative. God is creative. He is not created in the image of God. You are. He does the same thing he did in the garden. He brings in one tiny grain of truth—it may even be an old truth that is no longer true! Something you have already been set free from.

None of the email was about me. It was about the fruit of unhappiness, of jealousy, of victimization, of selfishness etc. that the writer had eaten in her life and that fruit was producing BIG fruit.

I did not have to be wounded by that. It was not my fruit to eat. I did not have to let that fruit plant doubt within my heart. I know who I am in Christ. I did not have to allow the fear of man invade my life.

Another problem with eating bad fruit and allowing those trees to grow is that they overshadow the good fruit trees that produce the fruit of the Spirit. They suck the living water out of your good fruit trees, it blocks the sun/Son, it steals the nutrients out of the soil, and no tree stuck in shade can produce fruit or flourish for that matter. This enables the enemy to play them emotionally. 

A lot of crows end up in those branches and that racket drowns out the Father's voice.

When I go into the spirit I see so much more turmoil going on that there has been in the past. Christians are tired. They are being tossed to and fro in so many areas. They are eating of any tree that presents its fruit to them. The enemy is sabotaging the acceptable, the normal, and the common with his poison.

Do not be deceived. Protect yourself.

If you see someone acting in a way that would not please the savior. Someone who is hurting others. Someone who is a Christian but is reacting in emotional turmoil it is time to intercede. It is time to be faithful. It is time to be diligent. It is time to be more observant. It is time to be aggressive in prayer.

Everyone needs intercessors. 

Who intercedes for you? 

Who are yours to pray for?