Fermented or Fresh; How is Your Fruit?

This week’s Devotionals on “The Holy Spirit’s Control” is drawing to a close.  Have you committed these verses to memory? We guarantee they will come in handy when the next battles arise! Let’s hear what the Lord has given our Devotional writers to encourage us in our walk!

There are a few uses for fermented fruit and some health gurus will tell you that fermented fruits are rich in beneficial bacteria that help support gut health and immune system function. However, many people know that fermented fruit is used to make alcohol. As a child you may have seen the fruit that was left on the table and thought hmm this looks good, but the taste test told a different story. That fresh fruit left out looked like good fruit, but it failed the taste test. It was mushy and bitter. The sweet flavor had changed. Left out a little longer and that fruit would continue to ferment and turn into alcohol. Fresh and fermented fruit are like wheat and tares. Sadly, we have people who look like fresh fruit, and they are instead fermented tricking people into believing that they are good. The Bible tells us that we are known by our fruit. This simply means that your lifestyle not just your words will tell others who you really are.

The Bible tells us that we should not be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. Attaching yourself to people whose fruit looks good but in reality, is fermented will result in dissipation. Dissipation is a descent into immorality, impurity, lewdness, corruption, self-indulgence, sinfulness, and depravity. These things are not of God and are the opposite of the sweet tasting fruit of the Spirit. As believers we are tasked with representing Christ well. We are tasked with not just looking like good fruit and acting like good fruit but being able to recognize good fruit. Fermented fruit like a tare looks good but isn’t good. Don’t be fooled by the fermented believers who say the right things, but their lifestyle is contrary to God’s word. Don’t be the believer who is fermented fruit, looking holy from a distance but up close you fail the taste test. Fermented believers cause others to stumble or make bad decisions because they are consuming your rotten (fermented) fruit. Remember that Spirit filled fruit shows up as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control while fermented fruit shows up as hatred, despair, conflict, impatience, meanness, wickedness, disobedience, brutality, and recklessness.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father forgive me for the times that I have been fermented fruit failing to represent You properly. Forgive me Father for intentionally acting like the world while on Your team. Teach me Lord to allow the Holy Spirit to lead and forgive me when I resist His guidance. Lord, the goal is to look more like You, to emit a sweet smell and taste, and to surround myself with like-minded people. Forgive me Lord for choosing fleshly narratives and outcomes. Thank You, Lord, for Your grace and mercy as I attempt to walk holy. Thank You for discernment of self as well as others. Thank you, for Your Word that lays out clearly what we should be and what we should attract and to what we should attach ourselves. Gratefulness overwhelms me when I realize how often I have failed but yet You have forgiven me. Thank You for so many chances to get “it” right. And thank You for Your Son, Jesus the Christ.  You died for my many sins and then rose again so that I may live. In the matchless name of Jesus, I pray, Amen.
By Sis. Patricia Towns