Maintain your fruit

In Galatians 5:22-23 the Word speaks of the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self control. Those first 3 love, joy & peace we get immediately when we receive Christ as our Lord & Savior, they are, you might say, freebies. Then.....we get to the next set patience, kindness, goodness oh my now we are getting up higher on the fruit tree now! Patience with people that seem to get on that "last" nerve. Kindness with people that are not kind to you, who may even say bad things to you, and goodness when your flesh is saying you don't have to be good in this situation, she said this or he did that. Now let's go on up the tree a little higher and higher and way out on the limb and get these next fruit, faith when you don't see a way, but you believe and have faith in God anyway. Gentleness when your flesh just wants to lose it, you remember the Word says: "A soft answer turns away wrath." and now the BIGGY! Drum roll please............................................SELF CONTROL! Oh mercy, help me Lord, I really don't know how I am going to ever be able to control my fleshly desires and habits and addictions of smoking, drugs, alcohol, over-eating, gossip, etc. I tell you most certainly today, that God WILL help you attain these fruit, He is our helper, our guide through the fruit orchard and He knows exactly what it takes to cultivate each and every one of these fruits in our lives. Even though upon Salvation we receive love, joy and peace we still must tend those fruit, cultivate, water, fertilize our orchards so that they produce fresh, sweet smelling fruit for our Great God. We must stay in the Word, read out loud what it says, listen to our Pastors and Teachers that want to help us to grow in the grace and the admonition of the Lord. The Word says for us to keep the Word in our eyes and in our ears and let it come out of our own mouths. We must be diligent in the cultivation of our own fruit. The Pastor, our family, our friends can't do it for us. This fruit growth, is a personal one on one thing with the Lord. He desires fresh fruit, not fake fruit, not rotten fruit but, fresh fruit. Love is a commandment we are to love God, and love people,John 15:12 the joy of the Lord is our strength, Nehemiah 8:10, so we must maintain that joy,there is a peace that passes all understanding when the world around you is crumbling, He is the Prince of Peace, and when we keep our minds on Him,He gives us perfect peace the Word says in Isaiah 26:3, patience comes through much diligence and practice, Romans 12:12, Galatians 6:9, Philippians 4:6. Kindness, when we can keep our eyes on Him, the Author and the Finisher of our faith and see how He was always kind to people and compassionate even to those that crucified Him, we will then be able to be more like Him, 2 Peter 1:5-8  Goodness, there is none good but God in reality but, when we keep our minds on Him and since we now have the mind of Christ and since we are as He was in this world,we can be good, just like Him, and we can have Faith which comes by hearing and hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Read, keep reading, study and keep studying, seek and keep seeking. Everything in the Kingdom of God is a continual flow. Seek out the fruit today, He will help you to attain a wonderful harvest. Fruit is not planted, grown and cultivated in one day. Hold fast to your confession, seek the Lord through prayer and study of the Word and you will harvest some awesome fruit of the Spirit.