When you begin to have an argument, learn how to pause near the beginning and check your “fruit.” This is a great opportunity to see your heart and know if it’s spiritually healthy or not.
Our actions point to our minds. Our thoughts are like plants. They take root and grow as long as we tend them. And our actions are the fruit. If the fruit isn’t the kind we need to be growing, we need to remove the plant and add the right one instead.
If fruit like love, joy, peace, patience (or forbearance), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are showing up (Gal 5:22-23), that’s great!!! This is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and can only grow if you are completely dependent on Him and Christ’s strength (Phil 4:13). Not your own willpower.
But if fruit like hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, and envy (Gal 5:20b-21a) show up in your mind and speech, it’s time to take a break. It’s time to step away and pray. Pray during all the angry and fruit-justifying thoughts. Pray even though you might not even feel bad about being bad. Pray because you want to grow. Pray because Jesus died for you despite your unloveliness – He loved you first. Pray because you can only love like He loved if you depend on Him, not your emotions.
Trust me, the emotions will follow suit. Strawberries can’t grow from tomato plants! And it takes time for the blossom to become fruit. You might have to wait a while.
By learning to surrender, counting on God to change your heart, and being willing to lean on His strength to obey, you will end up with the kind of peace that surpasses understanding. With purpose only He can give. With love for others who are unlovely as you once were. With grace that pours over you in abundance and is able to spill out onto everyone around you. With hope. And you will realize why there is joy in serving Jesus.
But it starts with that pause. Saying no to the garbage thoughts from the enemy, remembering truths you have found in Scripture, and choosing actions that align with Scripture.
Check out the “Put Off – Renew – Put On” Principle below:
Ephesians 4:20-24
But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
