Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love . . . No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 1 John 4:7-8, 12-13 NKJV

In Psalm 1:3, David said that the fruitful man . . . “shall be alike a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” Isaiah 61:3 says that the fruitful “would be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” Jesus said, “for a tree is known by his fruit” (Matthew 12:33). So, what is the fruit of the reborn?

Fruit is the offspring, outgrow, or the produce of a plant or a womb (John 3:5). When we are born of the Spirit, the Spirit will control our lives and produce the fruit of the Spirit. God is a Spirit; but God is also love (1 John 4:8). According to Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, and love has attributes and manifestations: joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16).

Remember that the fruit of a plant may be fresh, frozen, canned, or dried. When we stop showing the fresh fruit of the Love (Spirit), we are like “spots in [our] love feasts . . . serving only [ourselves] . . . clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots” Jude 12). Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit” (John 15:5). Love is the fruit of the reborn!