Fruit Wars: Reclaiming Your Spiritual Garden
Ava Pennington
6 min read ⭑
The squirrels beat me to the fruit . . . again.
Living in Florida, I’ve learned that the sweetest fruit grows right in my own backyard: oranges, pineapples, even mangoes. Especially mangoes. My mouth waters every spring as I watch blossoms develop into fruit on our two mango trees. Tiny orbs smaller than golf balls slowly mature into the sweetest mangoes I’ve ever tasted — that is, when I actually get to them.
One of the great frustrations in growing fruit is watching it develop day by day, only to see it stolen just as it reaches the peak of ripeness. I’d look up to see half-eaten fruit still hanging high on the tree out of my reach, yet not out of the reach of agile squirrels hopping from branch to branch — brazen thieves taunting me as they snatch their mouthwatering treasures.
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Even if mangoes are not your thing, you may still recall biting into a ripe piece of fruit on a hot summer day. Maybe it was a peach, a plum or a slice of watermelon. Remember the sweet taste as the juice dripped off your chin?
God describes several of his attributes as fruit he develops in us. The apostle Paul listed these in Galatians 5:22,23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. They are not separate fruits (plural). Rather, each one is a display or facet of the fruit (singular) that the Holy Spirit grows in our lives. They come as a package of nine. God develops this fruit in us to grow us to be more like Christ. So why do we often feel as if we don’t have enough of this fruit? Perhaps it’s because this fruit is also the target of a thief.
Spiritual Thievery
The fruit of the Spirit is ours at the moment of faith when the Holy Spirit takes residence in those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. Through his presence, he continuously works in each of us to graciously provide the characteristics of Christ-likeness.
Still, many of us lack these qualities — qualities we were meant to have in abundance. How often have you and I wished we had greater peace or more patience? Or mourned our lack of self-control? How many times have we longed to be more loving or agonized over the joy stealers in life? Many believers know what God has promised, yet are frustrated because of their lack of progress.
The Bible describes Satan as an accuser, tempter, roaring lion and serpent. When Satan is at work, the result can be a discouraging sense of half-eaten fruit hanging on the branches of our lives. The fruit is there, but we’re cheated out of the full blessing of watching these characteristics fully ripen in us as we live out our Christian faith.
The Power to Steal or Stunt?
A twenty-year corporate career in New York City trained me to be goal-oriented. And the way to achieve my goals was to try harder, work smarter and do better. I needed to learn that growing and maturing the fruit of the Spirit is not simply a function of doubling down on my efforts. Instead, the answer was to change my perspective.
We don’t have the power to create the fruit of the Spirit, regardless of how much effort we expend. Only the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, can do that. And since God alone can create this fruit, Satan does not have the authority or the ability to steal what the Holy Spirit has planted in us. However, our spiritual enemy doesn’t need to actually steal the mature fruit. All that’s required is to stunt its growth, preventing it from maturing. Similar to a natural fruit tree, immature fruit drops off the branches of our lives, littering the ground with unripe fruit that will never reach its potential. But we play a part in this process. Spiritual transformation focuses on surrender to the Holy Spirit. However, don’t mistake surrender for passivity. Surrender is intentional and active.
How Powerful Is Satan?
When we think of our spiritual enemy, we can be ensnared by either of two opposite — yet equally harmful — mistakes. The first is to think Satan is equal to or greater in power than God. The other is to think the devil is merely a fable.
Satan is a created being — a fallen angel. While God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (present everywhere at the same time), Satan has none of these attributes. But he is still a formidable adversary that we should neither overestimate nor underestimate.
God has granted Satan limited, temporary authority in our world. Outside of Christ, we were like prisoners of war (POWs) under that authority. The apostle Paul used similar POW imagery in Colossians 1:13 to describe our release: God “rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” Then what prevents us from standing against the devil’s attacks on the fruit God promises us by his Spirit?
The Power of Abiding
While we cannot create fruit, we can position ourselves for the Holy Spirit to have his way with us. Only one position can accomplish this: the place of abiding. In John 15:4,5, Jesus told his disciples, “Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
“In spiritual battles, God has given us everything we need to stand in victory.”
Our spiritual enemy can tempt us to neglect our abiding. Just as a branch broken from the vine no longer receives sustenance to bear fruit, our failure to remain connected separates us from everything we need to mature the Spirit’s fruit in us. And the devil employs a variety of weapons to accomplish this goal.
The Enemy’s Arsenal
The apostle Paul understood our need to be alert and aware of Satan’s scheming character. The enemy’s arsenal includes two common tactics.
1. Tempting Us to Doubt God’s Word
Satan wants us to doubt God. Just as in the garden with Eve, he starts with a subtle question: “Has God really said . . . ?” (Genesis 3:1).
Pride can cause us to think we are more alert than Eve to the enemy’s schemes. But consider what happens when we fail to experience the full fruit of the Spirit. What happens when we don’t experience joy, peace, patience, self-control and the rest? We hear Satan’s whispered lies: Could it be God that can’t be trusted?
2. Attacking When We’re Most Vulnerable
I love watching nature documentaries — until they broadcast scenes of predators sneaking up on their prey. A lion watches a herd of gazelles from a distance and identifies a weak member. In a flash, the predator charges. As the herd flees, the target is isolated and killed in a heartbreaking attack.
It’s no coincidence that the apostle Peter used the imagery of a prowling lion to describe Satan. We become vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks when we pridefully overestimate our ability to withstand temptation.
The enemy wants us to forget he is already defeated. The war was won at the cross. Still, the devil continues to fight skirmishes until Christ returns for his own. Until that day, our spiritual enemy will do everything possible to cause us to live in defeat. The worst of it is, we help him do it.
Does the Devil Make Us Do It?
The devil cannot make us do anything. However, if we let down our guard, the father of lies can use deceit to tempt us with our natural desires. Satan constantly works to draw us away from submission to the Holy Spirit, thus stunting the growth of the Spirit’s fruit. We can blame the devil for sin in the world, but it’s critical that we acknowledge our part in following his enticements. The better we understand how we are lured away, the more alert and equipped we will be to withstand temptations and cultivate the fruit the Holy Spirit intends us to have. But we need the right weapons.
Spiritual Battles Require Spiritual Weapons
In spiritual battles, God has given us everything we need to stand in victory. But how often do we ignore his provision and instead rush blindly into spiritual battle? We fail to properly arm ourselves, then wonder why we’re defeated.
The apostle Paul described the “full armor of God” available for us to “stand firm against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). The word schemes is a translation of the Greek methodeía. It sounds like our English word method, doesn’t it?
God’s armor equips us to overcome those methods. Paul listed the armor’s components in Ephesians 6:13–17. It’s no coincidence that before listing the components of the armor, Paul exhorted his readers to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He painted a word picture to illustrate the life we settle for compared to the life our heavenly Father offers us in Jesus Christ. We can be controlled by wine, resulting in excessive sensual indulgence, or we can be filled — controlled — by God’s powerful Holy Spirit. The choice is ours.
Ava Pennington is an author, speaker and Bible teacher. Her newest book is Flourish: Grace-Centered Practices to Protect and Grow a Fruitful Life in Christ. Ava also teaches a weekly Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class of 200+ women and is an inspirational speaker for church and community groups and writers conferences.
Taken from Flourish: Grace-Centered Practices to Protect and Grow a Fruitful Life in Christ by Ava Pennington. Copyright © 2025. Used by permission of Kregel Publications.
