Do you want your children to live fruitful lives? Of course, you do! Help your children understand the Fruit of the Spirit and how God wants us to treat others!
Scripture Reference: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." ~ Galatians 5:22-23 (NIrV)
Part of raising a child in a Christian home is teaching important values that we, as parents, want them to know and become a way of life. God has given us many tools to illustrate how He wants us to raise our children. One of these special tools is the Fruit of the Spirit. They are nine traits that help us live closer to God, and parents are blessed to be able to teach them. In fact, we could all use a refresher course ourselves, while our children learn them, too!
Fruit needs to be planted, watered, cultivated, and brought to maturity over time. You can't plant a watermelon seed and expect to see the results right away. As with real fruit, the Fruit of the Spirit needs time, attention, and diligence to bring it to fruition. So, don't expect your child to grasp it all overnight. As parents, we need to nurture our children and guide them along in their Christian walk.
Love: This kind of love is more than an emotional feeling you have for someone. It transcends all wrong and forgives every time. God wants us to love everyone. It is easy to love family and friends. Jesus tells us that we must love our enemies. So, maybe instead of saying regretful things to someone who has hurt you, you could pray for that person and forgive them.
Joy: We all like to feel joy in our lives, don't we? A picnic on a sunny day, a walk on a beach, and even memories of Christmas past all bring joy to us. The kind of joy portrayed in the Fruit of the Spirit, however, is much deeper. This is joy in knowing that God is control of all things. It is accepting His power and strength, and knowing that we can lean on Him. The only way to have true joy is to delve into God's Word and hide it in your heart. That way, no matter what situation you find yourself in, you can refer to Scripture and find joy in everything.
Peace: When looking in our Bibles, we see that peace is always tied to Jesus. It never stands alone. Therefore, we must assume that we can only find true peace in Jesus and his teachings. We must learn to be peaceful in three important relationships: with God, with others, and with ourselves. We gain peace with God by believing and trusting Him. We gain peace with others by not allowing struggles and problems to be a part of our relationships with other people. We gain peace with ourselves by confessing our sins and becoming reconciled with God. We throw out our feelings of guilt and worthlessness, because we know God is our Father.
Patience: Patience means being gentle and constant in all circumstances. The real test of patience comes not in waiting for something to happen, but in how you act while you are waiting. We must be able to put up with things that we do not agree with without losing our temper. While patience may take some time to achieve, the rewards our wonderful.
Kindness: Kindness seems like an easy thing to achieve. But, it is harder than we think. We were not born to be kind. We were born sinners. We learn kindness and acquire it throughout our lives. Just like love, it is easy to be kind to family and friends. But, what about people you don't know or people that hurt you in some way? It's not quite so easy, is it? It may take sacrifice of time and energy to achieve, but God has promised to help us. It is a discipline we learn and through prayer and practice, you can do it.
Goodness: Goodness is our ability to do good to those who dislike us, as well as those who we love. Don't take the people you love for granted. Make every effort to good all the time. We also need to be useful Christians who are trying to make a difference in the world, and we need to be people who can be trusted and relied upon because of our goodness.
Faithfulness: To portray faithfulness, we must be devoted to Jesus. We must stay in God's Word and commit it to our memory, as much as possible. Being faithful means doing what we say we are going to do, even when we don't feel like it. God says that if we are faithful with little things, He will make us rulers of much.
Gentleness: This describes Christians as being meek and humble. Unfortunately, the world today sees those who are gentle as being weak and unable to take care of themselves. On the other hand, the media is blunt and will cut someone down in a heartbeat. Speaking harshly to others does not show God's love. Ranting and raving is not being a witness to the Gospel. Try staying calm in any situation. You will walk out a better person.
Self-Control: We need to have control over our bodies and our minds. We have total control over how we handle situations, and our actions stem from the decisions we make. When we know that something is wrong, but we do it anyway, we are not practicing self-control. Temptations will be among us at every turn in our lives, but we must control our physical and mental self to turn from temptation.
