Galatians 5:22-23

"But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Galatians 5:22-23

Now that our busy June has come to a close, we can get back to our craft-time!

For our second craft project, we made "Fruit of the Spirit Jars." First, I read Galatians 5:22-23 to the girls. We talked about how a lemon tree produces lemons and a grapevine produces grapes. Just like that, we also produce "fruits" when the Spirit of God lives in us and works in us. We talked about how we cannot produce these fruits on our own, but only if we are listening to and following God's Spirit will the fruits come out of us.

After our discussion, we got down to work. I had bought two small glass jars at Hobby Lobby. Then I made stencils of fruit shapes out of contact paper. The girls picked their paint colors and started painting. We used the stencil to paint one fruit on each side of the jars. Then I used paint pens for the details and wrote one of the fruits of the Spirit on each side of the jars and the bible verse reference on the lid.

Once the jars were complete, I told the girls that I would be looking for the fruits of the Spirit demonstrated in them. Each time I see one of the fruits demonstrated, I will write it down and put it in their jar. Once they have all the fruits of the Spirit in their jars, we will do a fun fruit-related activity like make strawberry ice cream or something.

So far, Princess has demonstrated love, kindness, and goodness, and Pumpkin has demonstrated love and joy.

I had another teaching opportunity with Princess the other day when she was being really sweet to Pumpkin. I told her that I had seen goodness in her and I was going to put it in her jar. She had a big smile on her face and she said, "Mommy, I didn't even know!" I told her that it's only really a fruit of the Spirit if she's not doing it to get a reward, but doing it because she has goodness in her heart. If she's doing it so that I will notice and put it in her jar, then it is selfishness, which is from our sinful nature, not from the Spirit. I think she gets it.