Spiritual Predictability

One thing I have never seen is a peach growing on the grape vine.  Neither have I tasted a plum that was produced on a blueberry bush.  There is a predictability about where the fruit grows.  It grows according to the root to which it is connected.  The grapes depend on the root of the grape vine and not the root of the nearby plum tree.  To expect anything else is simply ridiculous.  There is an order to everything including the growth of the fruit that grows on trees and vines and bushes. 

 

There is a passage in the book of Galatians which speak of a spiritual predictability.  In the 22nd verse of the 5th chapter the Word says, "...the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control."  This fruit is not the product of some ecstatic and emotional minute at the altar.  It is not the result of giving ourselves a daily dose of discipline for ten or twelve years.  It comes not because we decide to get up and make those choices one morning for the rest of our life.  The root upon which this fruit depends has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the Holy Spirit.   

Unlike the fruit of human determination, this fruit does not depend on a moment of decision making.  It does not show itself in our life because we have looked at a situation, weighed the possibilities, and made the choice to be patient or kind or loving.  Instead, the fruit born of the Holy Spirit is one born in a spontaneous manner.  It does not require thoughtful deliberation, only intentional abandonment to the Holy Spirit.  When the Holy Spirit is allowed control of our inner being these things of which the Word of God speaks begin to show themselves on the vine of our life in a natural spontaneous manner because we are depending on a connection to the root known as Spirit.