I hate it when I buy fruit and it’s just bad. This happens to me a lot with mangos. I’ll spend a few minutes trying to pick a good one, I’ll bring it home and let it ripen, and then when I cut into it, it’s brown and smells gross. Ugh. It’s a waste of $1.29 and leaves me disappointed if I was really excited for mangos. The beautiful outside of the fruit doesn’t matter if the inside is rotten.

Maybe that’s kind of what Jesus was talking about when he said that we’d be known by our fruit (Matthew 7:16). It’s not how we look on the outside; it’s the shape of our heart that matters. And our heart spills over into our actions, which will either be beautiful or rotten depending on the state of our hearts.

Do you know how to ensure a tree has good fruit? Keep the tree healthy! Once the fruit is out, there’s not much we can do to make it good or bad. We can scrub an apple all we want, but if it’s rotten on the inside—ick. On the other hand, if we make sure the tree is watered, fertilized, and protected from pests, it will produce good fruit all by itself.

The same is true in our lives. Often we try to focus on making the fruit good while ignoring our heart health. We know the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23), and so we try to be more loving or show more self-control. Does it work? Occasionally, temporarily. But if we’re just dealing with the outside, our heart of impatience and unkindness will show itself sometime or another.

There’s a reason Paul called it the “fruit of the Spirit,” not the “fruits of the Spirit.” It’s not a bunch of different kinds of fruit, where maybe we’ll be good at one and not another. (“You know, I’m a pretty faithful person, but I’m not always patient.”) That’s not the point. The point is that if we focus on the heart and letting the Spirit control us on the inside, this is the kind of fruit that will show up in our lives—all of it. That’s not to say we’ll be perfect, but that’s what will mark our lives.

There’s also a reason Paul called it the “fruit of the Spirit.” It’s not something we can produce up on our own! If we try, it’s likely to be pretty rotten. It’s the Holy Spirit that produces it in us—that’s why it’s super fruit! If you let the Spirit have control of your life, He will shape your character in a way you never would have been able to on your own.

Looking at our fruit—our character and the choices that we make—is a great way to evaluate our hearts because what’s inside will always show up on the outside, eventually. So instead of working really hard to make your fruit look good, let God work on your heart, and watch the super fruit that starts to grow in your life.

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7 studies on a fruitful life