Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Fruit at Christmas

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Galatians 5:22-23. 

In the New Living Translation of the Bible:
Peace appears 361 times. That is a lot of peace.
Love is written 641 times. That’s an abundance of love.
Joy is expressed 271 times. That’s a large portion of joy.

Peace, joy and love. That is what Christmas is all about. The Love of God transcending all of time bringing Peace as announced by the angels to the shepherds near Bethlehem (Luke 2:14) and Joy as expressed by the wise men (Matthew 2:10). Those are pretty much the key words of the season. Love, Joy, Peace. The thing is these are not just Christmas words. They are all year around words that represent values of the Holy Spirit with which we are blessed. The fruit—not fruits—of the Spirit when we are yielding our lives to the Lord contains these qualities and more. It is all wrapped together in one package. Fruit.


Is your life being fruitful? Are you blessing others with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control  that the flows from the Holy Spirit to you…and on to others? Enjoy that fruit every day…not just at Christmas. 

Prayer ~ Lord, refresh my soul—for I have not lost sight of common sense and discernment (Proverbs 3:21-22) or the fruit of the Spirit. I cherish Your every word and desire to help others understand them, too.

© 2016 by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved.
All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise noted.Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm

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