Fruit of the Spirit Devotions

When the global pandemic began at the beginning of 2020, children in the Manna 4 Lempira sponsorship program were no longer able to meet for church or bible teaching.  As a way to keep them learning the Word at home with their families, 6 of us sponsors came together and wrote a bible challenge booklet.  We each wrote one week of the challenge; then the ministry director compiled them into a booklet and had them distributed to all of the children in the program.  For my week, I wrote a series on the Fruit of the Spirit.  If you sponsor a child through Manna 4 Lempira who was in the program as of mid 2020, they have already received these devotionals.  However, if your child is new to the program or is part of a different sponsorship organization, this could be a great study to send to them.  You could send all 9 fruits at the same time or send 1 fruit in each letter over the course of several months with the devotion and verse for that fruit.  You can also customize it by adding coloring page for each fruit, fruit-themed recipes or scented stickers, and so much more.

My Amy with her banana-themed devotion about joy

Introduction: When you become a child of God, He puts His Holy Spirit inside of you to teach you, comfort you, and guide you.  The Holy Spirit makes beautiful things grow in our hearts.  We call these things the Fruits of the Spirit, because they grow in our hearts like fruit grows on a tree.  The fruits that the Spirit grows in our hearts are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  God promises that His children will always have the choice to use these things.

Memorize Galatians 5:22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

Descriptions & Fruit Analogies:

Love: Love means caring about someone and doing what is best for them.  When I think of love, I think of hearts.  A fruit that reminds me of love is cherries, because they look a little like hearts.

Joy: Joy is the happiness we get from God.  Even when we are sad about something else, we can have joy about God, because He is always with us.  When I think of joy, I think of smiles.  A fruit that reminds me of joy is bananas, because they look like smiles.

Peace: Peace is the calmness that we get from God.  It means we can relax and know that everything will be okay, even when something scary happens, because He will never leave us.  When I think of peace, I think of a calm place, like a beach.  I also think about standing tall and confident, and not being afraid.  A fruit that reminds me of peace is pineapples, because they grow in calm, tropical places like a beach; and they stand tall with a big crown of leaves on top.

Patience: Having patience means waiting for something that takes a while, without complaining or becoming anxious.  When I think of patience, I think of praying for something and trusting that God will answer, even if it takes a while.  A fruit that reminds me of patience is watermelon, because watermelons are huge, so we have to wait a long time for them to grow to full size.

Kindness: Kindness means being nice to others and doing nice things for them.  A fruit that reminds me of kindness is oranges, because when you open an orange, it is broken into pieces- to be shared with friends!

Goodness: Goodness means doing what is right.  All people have sinned, so none of us are good on our own.  Jesus died to take the punishment for our sins for us, so our spirits can be good again.  Then, He put His Holy Spirit inside of us to help us make good choices.  A fruit that reminds me of goodness is apples, because in the bible, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate a fruit (which people think was an apple) from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This reminds us that we need to make good choices.

Faithfulness: Faithfulness means believing in God and His promises, even when you can't see them.  A fruit that reminds me of faithfulness is figs.  In Jeremiah 24, God's people were held captive as slaves, while other people mocked them.  God showed Jeremiah two baskets of figs: one good and one rotten.  This was a symbol God's promise for the future.  God promised that His people who were going through trouble now would turn out prosperous like the good figs, and their enemies would be like the rotten figs.  They needed to have faith to believe this, because it wasn't what they could see at that time.  But later, it happened, and they were freed!

Gentleness: Gentleness is very similar to kindness.  It means being careful to say and do things that will make people happy instead of hurting them.  It means speaking soft words instead of harsh words.  When I think of gentleness, I think of something soft and fuzzy.  A fruit that reminds me of gentleness is peaches, because they are fuzzy on the outside.

Self-Control: Self-control means that God gives us the ability to control ourselves and use all of the other Fruits of the Spirit that He gave to us.  It means that we can always choose the right thing and never have to choose the wrong thing.  Instead of thinking of self-control as one fruit, we are going to think of it as a big fruit salad- because it helps us to use a mixture of all of the other Fruits of the Spirit.

 

Memory verses for each fruit:

Love:   1 John 4:19 (We love, because God first loved us.), John 3:16 (For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life), Romans 5:8 (God demonstrates His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.)

Joy: Nehemiah 8:10 (The joy of the LORD is your strength.)

Peace: Deuteronomy 31:6 (Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you.  He will not fail you or forsake you.)

Patience: Galatians 6:9 (Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.)

Kindness: Matthew 7:12 (Treat other people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law of the Prophets.)

Goodness: Romans 3:23 (For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God) Tie into how our only goodness is through Jesus

Faithfulness: Hebrews 11:1 (Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.)

Gentleness: Proverbs 15:1 (A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.)

Self-Control: 2 Timothy 1:7 (God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.)

 

How Jesus Used the Fruits of the Spirit:

Love: John 3:16 tells us Jesus did what was best for us by coming to Earth to save us so we could have eternal life.

Joy: Luke 10:21 says Jesus rejoiced when He thought about the Holy Spirit and how He gives us knowledge.

Peace: Matthew 14 tells us Jesus walked on water in the middle of a crazy storm.  This tells us He wasn’t afraid, because He had calmness and trust in God to protect Him.

Patience: Mark 1:13 tells us Jesus stayed in the wilderness for 40 days while being tempted by the devil.  This shows that He had great patience while waiting for the season to end.

Kindness: In Matthew 19:14, Jesus told his disciples to let the little children come to Him.  Jesus loves children and was very kind to them.

Goodness: 1 Peter 2:22 tells us Jesus never sinned or said anything wrong.  This tells us He is the only one who is completely good, so He is the only one who can save us.

Faithfulness: Several places in the bible, such as Luke 3:21, show Jesus praying.  This shows us His faith in His Father even when He couldn’t see Him.

Gentleness: In John chapter 8, a crowd of people were trying to kill a woman because she had sinned.  Jesus stopped them, forgave her, and let her go free even though she had done something wrong.  This shows that He is gentle and caring to anyone who accepts His gift of forgiveness and believes He died to save us.

Self-Control: In Matthew 4, Jesus was being tempted by the devil to bow down to him.  Jesus was without food or water in the wildness.  It would have been very easy for Him to become tired and give in, but He didn’t.  He controlled Himself and continued to worship God.