What’s your favorite fruit? Maybe a delicious apple or juicy orange? Perhaps strawberries or blueberries? Fruits are rich sources of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that contribute to overall health by supporting immune function, promoting skin health, aiding digestion with fiber, and reducing the risk of chronic diseases through their potent antioxidant properties. Blueberries are an excellent example of a fruit that acts as an antioxidant.
Besides the health benefits “nature’s candy” offers, fruit is colorful and gives a delightful flavor explosion with each bite!
DID YOU KNOW?
The strawberry isn’t a true berry, but a “pseudo-berry” and the only fruit with seeds on the outside.
The pineapple is not a single fruit, but a composite of many small berries fused together.
The avocado is actually a large berry.
Apples come in over 7,500 different varieties.
The pomegranate is one of the oldest known fruits, dating back to ancient civilizations.
The orange is the most popular fruit in the world.
The banana is actually classified as an herb, not a fruit.
Let's not forget grapes (mentioned often in the Bible) which are used to make wine.
The Bible talks about ‘fruit’ in the very first Book of the New Testament. What does God mean when He refers to FRUIT in the Bible?
Matthew 7:17 - “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.”
Biblical fruit is when, after accepting Jesus Christ as our Saviour, the Holy Spirit fills us and He begins to produce good “fruit” in us; in other words, He begins to make us more like Jesus. As we pursue God in His Word and follow after Him with our whole heart, the Holy Spirit continues to produce more and more good fruit in us.
Bad fruit is produced when the Holy Spirit is not present (referring to people who haven’t been spiritually born into God’s family) and evil takes over. God calls it “corrupt or evil fruit.”
What is the “fruit of the spirit”? Below in Galatians Chapter 5 are nine characteristics that God says are the result of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. Apart from Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, we can do nothing; we are dependent upon God to help us grow. The fruit He produces in us is beautiful and life-changing!
Galatians 5:22-23 - “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: …”
Christ-followers are known by their fruit; and rewarded for it in Heaven. Righteous fruit has eternal benefit.
Proverbs 11:18b - “… but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.”
(See 1Cor. 3:14)
Consider your fruit. Who have you shared Christ with that can be counted as fruit? If you are truly a child of God, you will want to shout from the rooftops how He saved your soul and tell others how they too can experience spiritual birth! Read the Parable of the Sower HERE.
If you have no fruit at all, consider what Jesus said in Matthew 13:22:
“He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.”
Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Be careful as you study this topic, as the New Age bible versions (NIV, NKJV, ESV, RSV, "Inspired" etc.) change God’s Words … even some of the names of the fruit! Things that are different are not the same!
Every single word in the Bible is pure and God warns not to change it, but He knew satan would change it again, just as he did in the Garden …
2Timothy 4:3-4 – “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”
satan has changed God’s Word from the beginning, and now in “versions” of the Bible, but God has preserved His Word for English-speaking people in the King James Bible, but most importantly, it is preserved in Heaven (per the OLD Testament). It is holy!
Psalms 119:89 - “… For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.”
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