Full disclosure. I am clueless when it comes to gardening. It's safe to say that I do not have

green fingers. In fact, given the incompetence with which I wield garden shears, it's remarkable

that I have any fingers. We have two trees in our backyard. I've taken to calling one of them

the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because it's rather mysterious. I'm not sure what it is,

and I don't want my daughter eating any of the fruit. The other tree, even I can identify,

because it produces these gorgeous little green limes, and that's the thing about fruit.

If you can identify the fruit, then you've identified the tree. I think that's one of the reasons

why the Apostle Paul talks about the fruit of the spirit. He could have talked about the

characteristics of the spirit or the evidences of the spirit, but instead it's the fruit

of the spirit. In other words, it's what you would expect to see growing in a genuine Christian

believer. If someone says the tree in my backyard is an apple tree, but all I ever see on it

aligns, then we can assume that it is indeed a lime tree and not, in fact, an apple tree.

In the same way, if someone claims to be a Christian, but we don't see the fruit of the spirit,

then it's quite possible that what we're looking at is not, in fact, a Christian after all.

Paul describes what the fruit of the spirit looks like in Galatians 5. The fruit of the spirit,

says Paul, is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

So, what should the Christian life look like? Well, there are two ways we might fall off

this particular horse. Two opposite, but equally mistaken views of what the Christian life should

look like. One is the legalistic life. That was the temptation that the Galatians were facing.

It seems that they've been told that faith in Christ was not enough in itself,

unless you keep obeying the law in every single respect, then you cannot be a Christian.

That's legalism. The other equally damaging view of what it means to be a Christian is the

...