Fruit is meant to be eaten. If you leave an apple on a tree, it’ll overripen and fall useless to the ground. If you leave it on the counter, it’ll decompose and stink up the place. If you don’t use it, it’s ruined.
But for that apple to be useful, it has to change state.
You have to chop, slice, peel, squeeze, bite, chew. The fruit needs to be made presentable and digestible in order to provide sustenance (and joy!).
Same with the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Each of us has seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control within us [Gal 5:22]. And when those seeds bear fruit, you can’t just sit around and look at how beautiful it is.
You have to use it. Ideally to feed others.
Whether you serve it up in bite-sized pieces or in deep vats, the good fruit within you can’t sit dormant. It has to be transformed from raw material into nourishing food for people starving for a taste of God.
It has to go from feeling to function.
Your abundance of delicious, life-giving fruit is meant to feed not just one (you), but hundreds, maybe thousands of others. You have far more than you could ever use alone.
Don’t be afraid to slice off a piece or give away a whole pie! The fruit God gives you in return will be infinitely sweeter.
“A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” [Prov 11:25 NLT]