10: The Fruit of the Spirit, etc.

 010: Hmm, am I on number 10 or have I miscounted? Either way, here I am, trying to blog, and today what I want to talk about is the fruit of the Spirit. Without looking up the verse can you recite them? I'm guessing many of you can. And why? Because there's a great, catchy song. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control! I don't recall the song having the next section which says: against such things there is no law. Perhaps it's a translation issue, a minutiae, but I would say that it would be better worded: against such things there should be no law. Because there are many stupid laws out there. It could also more accurately read: such things are behind the spirit of most laws.

Jesus talks about good fruit coming from good trees and bad fruit coming from bad trees. He says: you can't pick grapes from thistles. What does this mean? Can we train ourselves to grow different fruits? If we are thistles, can we graft on grapevines? Can we tell which type of plant we are before we grow fruit ourselves? How does this relate to the passage about Jesus being the Vine and us being the branches? One thing I often think about with that metaphor is the fact that obviously, Christ is saying that we as branches cannot survive without him as the vine, AKA the trunk, however, it is also notable that a vine cannot survive without branches! They say we are Jesus's hands and feet in the world... perhaps we are his only hands and feet. An enormously challenging calling.
I think of this as I just bought some big stakes to stake up my two young grapevines for the next few years until they need better trellising. They have already put out a few grapes the last two or three years, but I can tell that if they continue to be healthy, within a few years they will be bursting at the seams with grapes.
Today I would encourage you to check out the most recent episode of Hold That Note, which has nothing to do with grapevines, haha. And another episode should drop next Friday-ish. Thanks for reading and listening,
Lucas
https://open.spotify.com/show/3iClt0Jw9XQs8NKR7PnBmv

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