Promise of Help

Over the course of the last 11 weeks, God has taught us many things about His kingdom and kingdom ways. We will never understand them all, but the one’s God wants us to learn, He is spelling out in these lessons. I’m glad, aren’t you?


Today He wants us to learn a very valuable lesson in how He helps us. This is valuable because He says these things we cannot do by ourselves. So of course we’d want to listen up, because if he says we can’t do them by ourselves, when we begin doing them in our Christian walk, we’ll lean on Him to do them, and not even try by ourselves, therefore not getting it right.

Not getting something right can affect others. It can cause ripples in our lives like skipping a rock across the pond and causing small waves of hurt along the way. I want to learn how to do this right, don’t you?

In Galatians 5:19-21 God lists “works” of our self, our flesh. These are works of trying to do ‘life’ on our own. But in verse 22 the bible lists what is called fruit of the Spirit. This is the result of us trusting and leaning on God and He does these things through us.

The difference of works verses fruit is works we do, fruit God does. Any time we see works listed, it’s ourselves trying to get a God result, only without Him. Anytime we see fruit listed, it’s a result of God getting the result through our hands, our heart, our mind, as we yield to Him. This is the same as we studied from Romans where ‘whoever you yield to, you will be the servant of’. Yielding to satan will get the works of the flesh. Yielding to God will get the fruit of the Spirit. Do you understand?

Today God wants to focus on fruit. In particular, the vine and the fruit that comes from it. I’ve brought a piece of my decoration from my home to illustrate this lesson God is trying to teach us, my grapevine.

We are going to use this grapevine as we turn to John 15:1-5 “I AM the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman {another word for that is gardener}. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide {or stay} in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide {or stay} in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: the girl that abideth {or stays} in me {Jesus}, and I in her, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me {or apart from me} ye can do nothing”.

First God wants us to reread the last part of that last verse; for without Jesus we can do nothing. God wants us to know, we cannot, in no way, no matter how much we try on our own, and even try harder, cannot produce fruit on our own. Do you see it? He’s saying we cannot produce this fruit He’s talking about on our own, apart from Him. In these scriptures He tells us ‘as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it stays in the vine, no more can you, except you stay in Me’.

God wants us to understand the fruit He is talking about cannot be produced in us unless we stay in Jesus. This ‘staying’ in Jesus means we lean on Him, we ask for His help, we trust Him with everything we are. We open our hearts to Him and let Him do this fruit THROUGH US.

You see on this grapevine how the branches come off the vine? These branches are Christians, Christ followers. The vine is Jesus. All of us Christ followers, disciples of Jesus are hooked to Him for our sap, our life. We hang on Him. We don’t hang on the world. The world has no life giving force for a Christ follower. Jesus said hang on Him as the vine. But He also says as a branch cannot produce fruit by itself apart from the vine, neither can we as disciples. We have to be hooked to Him and fruit will come. Our position is to hang on the vine not to produce fruit. Do you think a branch on a grapevine hangs there every day and says to it's self ‘oh, I have to try hard today to make these grapes. I have to strain, bear down, and make these grapes today or the vine is going to be mad. Oh my goodness, I really have to make 3 clumps of grapes or the gardener is going to hate me’? No, it doesn’t. It just hangs on the vine, pulling life giving sap, sucking it up and enjoying the life it gives, and suddenly when it’s time, fruit begins to be produced. It shows up without effort, without the branch even trying. It gets to wake up one morning to wonderful little grapes beginning to show. How awesome it that? Little bitty grapes begin to show for all the world to see and it didn’t do anything but just hang out and draw life from the vine. This…. Is what Jesus is telling us girls. Just hang out with me, draw life from me, listen to Miss Cindy’s lesson I give her, listen to Bro Goode’s sermon I give him and respond to my call to the alter when I speak to you, read My Word in the mornings, get with me each day and tiny little fruit will begin to show up on you. Fun isn’t it? It’s not about our trying and grunting and then trying harder to be a good Christ follower, it’s about spending time with Christ and we suddenly have fruit of being a Christ follower.

Now….. what do you suppose He means by this fruit He’s talking about here in Galatians? Let’s go back to those scriptures and find out what the list of the fruits of the Spirit {done through us} are:

Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance {self control}”. These are fruit of the Spirit working through us. These are the fruit God talks about in John 15 that we cannot produce without Jesus. We are the branches hanging on Jesus. The more life giving sap we draw from Him, the more He {through His Spirit in us} produces the fruit of love, the fruit of joy, the fruit of peace, the fruit of longsuffering, the fruit of gentleness and so on. If you need more of the fruit of joy in your life, you don’t just go try to be happier. You spend time with Jesus, talking to Him, asking Him for the answers you have about your life. You release your cares to Him, letting go of anxiety and worry to Him, spending time with Him. This will produce that joy in your life.

If you need more peace in your life, you don’t just shut out the world and try to calm down on your own. You go spend time with Jesus, telling Him all about it, letting go of your worry to Him, asking Him to fill you with Himself, His Spirit. This will produce the fruit of peace in your life. Any time we see we are not operating in these fruit, it’s a direct result from not spending time with Jesus. When we spend time with Jesus, these fruit will begin to show up, without any effort. You don’t even have to pray for love, joy, peace, faith, goodness, they just show up in your life from spending time hanging on the vine and drawing life from Jesus.

John 15:5 ‘He that abideth {stayeth} in Me, and I in her, the same bringeth forth much fruit’. See? If you and I, as girls, with girls’ ways, girls’ needs, girls’ wants will stay in Jesus, in His ways, His needs, His wants, we will bring forth much fruit of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, faith, meekness and temperance {self control}. It’s a full circle. We focus on His wants and ours are fulfilled. We focus on His ways, and our ways are made whole, right, and good! Awesome way to get a lot of good in our lives isn’t it?

Let’s look one more time to the grapevine I brought today. Jesus compared our walk with Him to a vine and branches. So, let’s see one more thing that sticks out to me by this illustration. Do you see these tendrils? These are part of the branch that grows to help it secure itself, making it stronger against storms and hardships. It helps it hold on in times of roaring troubles. It grows outward looking for something to attach itself to, to anchor itself to for security. If this tendril attaches itself to a post that’s broken at the ground, that would move with the wind, and sway with any breeze, do you think it has security?

In Ephesians 4:14-15 it says ‘that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine {or teaching}’ verse 15 ‘but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him {Christ} in all things, which is the head, even Christ’.

This is why in John 15:1 Jesus says ‘I AM the true vine’. He is the truth. Jesus is the truth that we need, all Christians need, and the world needs. He says don’t be children in your following of Him, but grow up {by hanging on the True Vine} and be secure in Him. As your tendrils grow from you, you looking for security let that tendril grow around Him, the Truth, and you WILL be secure!



Let’s list those fruit and then their definitions: these are taken from Greek meaning:

1. Love – unconditional affection for someone

2. Joy – cheerfulness, calm delight

3. Peace – quietness, rest

4. Longsuffering - patience

5. Gentleness – kindness, easiness

6. Goodness - benefit

7. Faith – reliance and trust upon Christ

8. Meekness - humility

9. Temperance – self control



Now, let’s focus on the fruit for a minute. When I was studying this out in the original Hebrew and Greek text I was stumped about something. I was confused for a minute. I read what fruit meant in these scriptures and didn’t understand. Then the Holy Spirit opened it up for me.

You would think the word fruit meant food, part of a grape, part of an orange, part of some kind of food. Wouldn’t you agree with me? Doesn’t that make sense in our language? Well, it doesn’t.

The word fruit in Greek means ‘to pluck’. To pluck means to pick, like picking grapes or picking oranges. To pluck means to remove from the vine. Then God opened this meaning up to me. The fruit is not for the vines sake. The fruit is not for the fruits sake. The fruit is for others to pluck and taste. Do you see this? The fruit on the vine is for someone’s life that is in the world. This fruit is not necessarily for another Christ follower, a Christian, because we KNOW how they get fruit, right? Yes, they spend time with Jesus themselves. This fruit is for a hurting, damaged, lonely world. This is how they see a picture of Christ for themselves; they see the fruit of Christ in our lives.

We as Christ followers are to produce fruit for others to taste and use for life in their every day struggles. They are to taste the life of Christ in our daily actions and know that God is working in our lives. When someone messed up comes into our lives, don’t think ‘how can I get away from this person’ but think ‘what fruit of the Spirit do they need right now though me’ and give out that fruit. Do they need love? Let love of the fruit of the Spirit flow through you. Do they need peace? Let peace of the fruit of the Spirit flow through you. Do they need gentleness? Then let God’s gentleness flow through you.

We have all those things first. By time spent with Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our God Almighty, we will first receive love, and joy and peace and gentleness and faith and longsuffering and self control. But then as we go throughout our day, we will have that love and joy and gentleness to give to those that will ‘pluck our fruit’. 

Name as many fruit of the Spirit as you can remember:

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