Alice in wonderland might be a myth but the fact is the children of Israel spies found huge gigantic fruit. I often thought this fruit was maybe a bit of exaggeration until one day a friend of mine had family come out of Florida to see her. The lemons she brought to her cousin were the size of a huge melon like a small pumpkin. If a person is use to seeing little lemons these huge lemons seem enormous in size, In fact one lemon would make at least one pitcher of lemonade or several pies with no trouble. This was not a lemon to make slices for tea or other beverages; it was for lemonade or something that could be baked. If you really like lemons I guess you could eat it like a grapefruit, or an orange.

What are you going to do with love, joy, peace, love, faith longsuffering, gentleness, and kindness, the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Some people seem to be carrying fruit of the Holy Spirit the size of a strawberry and others the size of a grapefruit. Yet all the fruit is from one source the Holy Spirit. Caleb and some men had been sent in to check out the promise land to see what it looked like. After all it was the land of their ancestors, but no doubt someone had taken up residency in their absence of over four hundred years. To day a land left vacant that long would be sold at auction and it be no longer the family of the people who no longer lived there. Yet tribal times were different. Once a place was yours, it was thought to be yours, even if you left it especially if the people were nomadic type of tribe, which Abraham’s family was. They had cared for sheep of the field and his son’s carried on this tradition of sheep herding and farming. The abundance of crops in the promise land was like looking into paradise. The first time Abraham looked into the promise land, the land was not so green or full of life. Yet life and vegetation had grown in abundance in the Promise Land, so much so it had taken in strangers who rested on the property.

Caleb and the spies come back with this huge story of giants, carrying large fruit. Fruit Caleb wanted more of, yet the other spies were fearful to possess the land of promise, this would take Israel back into the wilderness for a time. How often the person looking into the church world sees the love of God but is fearful to grab a hold of faith. They taste the fruit of love, and hope by witnessing other believers’ lives. Yet to grab a hold of the fruit for themselves and take control and say I want the promise land too, is not so easy. Of course for a non-believer repentance is necessary. It is easier to remain in sin, then for a person to repent, some times. Even the believer knows this. It is the guilt of feeling unworthy to possess the things of God. However the promises of God are for us to grab hold of. The Holy Spirit is not for us to use, but for God to move in us, by providing love when a person would like to hate, or bearing for a long time with someone when a person would like to call it quits. It is showing kindness, when a person would like to really tell a person what one thinks, but hold their peace. To grab hold of the ways of God must begin with faith. To believe giant fruit exist is not hard, but to believe in the reality of God for some people it is harder. To believe in love is not so hard, even if surround by perverse people. Even people of perversion love their children. A child will often melt even the coldest heart, even if it takes time. Faith in God begins often with the very seed of thought, of his existence, but it does not end there. God desires each of us to believe in him. If a person has the desire to know God, God is going to reveal himself to them but it make take time for one to understand. Jesus came to bridge the gap between God and mankind, by demonstrating his love for us. By demonstrating God’s love all the way to the cross and by the resurrection. He came and took away our sin that caused us to die and gave us eternal life through Him. Breaking the punishment of Adam’s sin. Through forgiveness of our sin, when we ask, and promises of eternal life with him is given. The promise is to abide in his love for eternity. Those gigantic lemons being squeezed out to make lemonade, or like those gigantic bunches of grapes being squeezed to make juice or wine, remind us of the pain and blood poured out of Christ at Calvary. Only one had to die for our sin. Yet many die daily for failure to share ones faith in Jesus and our hope. People afraid to grab a hold of the promises of God because of looking at others life style claiming that hope. Never grasping the love of God is given to all, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, even some die more often then others in their transgression, realizing not only their failure but realizing God’s wants to change those areas that causing others to fall away from Him.

Do you want to be a witness of the gigantic fruit of God by allowing God’s Spirit to work in your life so others can see the hope through Christ Jesus? Or do you desire to be like the fruit gathered only to be taken out of the promise land for a few more years to learn about the ways and promises of God? Fruit was Plentiful and manna had to been old tasting, but the promise to possess the land was not enough. Do you trust God to grab a hold of His promise? Are you willing to grab hold knowing it not your ability to forgive, but God’s ability to forgive you that enables you to forgive others? Are you willing to love by God’s power, when your strength fails, because it will? Are you willing to long suffer, knowing God suffered for you?

Dear Heavenly Father help us to grab a hold of the gigantic fruit to possess the land of promise, and not just take a sample of your fruit with us. In Jesus precious name, Amen.