How to Grow a Fruitful Life - A Season of Bearing Fruit

Welcome to SEASON 3!!!

This Season we are taking the roadmap to live a really great life that Desireé designed in Season 2, to the next level! Onward and upward we go. We hope you are ready... and of course, as excited as we are!

In Episode 1 of Season 3, Desireé breaks down the concept of bearing good fruit. The beautiful idea of bearing good fruit is found in Galatians. She uses this episode to break down the scriptures and illuminate divine truth that we can apply to our lives right now.

Topics include:

• The Scripture that this season is built on – Galatians 5 (4:44)
• A picture of an ideal world… let’s imagine together what we could create. (7:08)
• Did you know there are 2 sides in this world competing for your attention? (8:41)

 Join Desireé as she uses her trips around the sun to throw encouragement around like confetti!

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Transcript

Desireé Melfi Bozzo: 0:06

Ciao and welcome to Life out loud. I am your host Desireé Melfi Bozzo. We are going to use this space to share experiences and help you find lasting unshakable unwavering unmessable with joy and gratitude. We're going to be throwing around encouragement, a little bit like confetti and giving you support to live your very best life. Ciao Friends, Welcome to season three of the Life Out Loud podcast. I am the creator of this podcast and your host, Desireé Melfi Bozzo. If you are new to this fun little space on the airwaves, welcome, I am so glad you decided to join me. For my longtime listeners. Thank you for your continued listenership and for your trust. No matter how long you've joined me in this space, the one thing I want to thank you all for is spending the most important commodity that you have with me. And that's your time. I realized that you could be doing a lot of other things. And you could be listening to many other podcasts right now. And I'm really grateful that you're listening to mine. I am so excited to kick off season three. And I'm even more excited for what I've I've created for you this season. So little look back - season two, was all about giving you the roadmap to live a really great life. It was about healing. It was about intentional living. If you haven't heard it, go back and listen, because this season, we're going to take it to the next level. Oh, yes, we are going to be talking about the success that comes from that roadmap, the fruit, if you will. I truly believe if you put into practice the things that I laid out in season two, you'll be able to begin to bear really incredible, God-filled fruit in your life. And so this season is going to be all about that. I hope you're ready. I'm so amped. I want to pray over this season. And I want to pray over you. And so my prayer is that the Lord of the harvest gets the soil of our hearts ready for his work and his teaching. I asked the Lord to ready our minds, and more importantly, ready our hearts for what we will embark on in season three. And I pray this for today I pray this for tomorrow and next week and next month and forever and ever. Amen. Friends, you aren't here by accident, I am so clear of that. If you are here, then there's something for you. Like, I don't know how you got here. Maybe you know me and you follow along. Also, if that's you, thank you, and maybe you just be popped into the space, you know, kind of, you know, on the surface on accident, but, there's no there's no accidents, let's be honest. I can't wait for you to find what it is that you're here for. I'm so pumped. So as we go along, keep in touch, let me know what you're pulling out of this and, and how it's resonating in your life. As we dive deep into this concept of bearing good fruit, I want to explain on a biblical level, what this means and why, like why it's so important in our lives. I think when we, when we grasp this idea, friends, it really does change everything. If you've hung around the first two seasons, you know that the Bible is my truth. And it's something that I use to to navigate life. I also realize that it's not everyone's and so if you're one of those people who found yourself here and you're like, I don't really know about this whole Jesus thing, that's cool. You don't have to know about it. I think the things that I'm going to talk about really apply to everyone. I just use the basis of the Bible to explain them. So back to the Scripture and back to bearing fruit. I think the idea of bearing good fruit, we find it in the book of Galatians. It's a book in the Bible. It's toward the back. It's in the New Testament. And in this episode in the season, really we're going to cover Galatians five, specifically, verses 16 to 23. So hang in me here, I'm going to read it and then we're going to go through and we're going to deconstruct it. So Galatians five chapter 16 starts off by saying, “so I say walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires, what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh, they are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you You want, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” Now, this next part we're going to look at two things. We're going to look at works of the flesh and the fruits of the Spirit. So we're going to pick back up in verse 19, of Galatians five and it says “the acts of the flesh are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, which are divisions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But” oh, friends, so much hinges on these letters. But verse 22, picks up and says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things, there is no law.” That was heavy. I know. We're going to take this, and we're going to break it into three parts. The first part 16 to 18 explains that there are really two sides in this world competing for your attention, works of the flesh and fruits of the Spirit. The second part, verses 19 to 21, lists out for us the works of the flesh and ends with an all encompassing, and the like, which is a blanket statement pulling us into right living with Jesus. The last part of this passage is 22 and 23, which lists the beautiful fruits of the Spirit. Now, I know enough about gardening to know that fruit doesn't just grow and flowers don't just bloom if the nutrients and the environment aren't healthy. Bearing fruit means there's an abundance of good things present. I want you to keep that in your back pocket for later in this podcast. One of the commentaries that I read, as I was studying through Galatians, is that and I quote,“in light of the freedom we have in the Gospel, Paul, which is the writer of Galatians, urges the Galatians to live spirit led lives of integrity, caring for one another, and treating one another with dignity, respect, and love.” End quote. When we do this friends, we're able to bear good fruit in our lives that is pleasing to the Lord. This may have been written so very long ago. But can you imagine a world like this, where we can walk in integrity that hems us in? Where we treat each other with dignity and respect? Something that if I can be honest, some days, I feel like those words don't even exist in this world anymore, right? Can you imagine if we live by them, a world where we loved each other. I don't know if you know, but each and every one of us has access to living in this way. The fruits of the Spirit are such a beautiful thing that you can cultivate in your life. And I want to continue to deconstruct this passage, to see how then we can take this and really apply it to our lives, because that's where the fruits bared, right, it's, it's bared when we can apply it. So our physical lives and the spiritual realm, they are connected. I think the world likes to lead us to believe that it's not, but they are. Heading back to Galatians 5:16-18. It reads, “so I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires, what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit, what is contrary to the flesh, they are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you're led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” I’m reading that, again to show you that there is an opposition between our flesh and our spirit. It shows us that the desires of each of those two things are not the same. And this is where the battle begins. And friends I'm gonna get deep, it is a battle. We might think that the works of the flesh our sinful habits will go unnoticed by people and that very well may be so for a while, but nothing is unnoticed by God. I read once the level of transparency that we have with God should cause us to pause and evaluate the ways in which we act on our desires. This tells me that we actually get a choice. Do we act on our desires or do we not? Ephesians six tells us there is a battle happening and it is directly related to the struggles of the flesh we are facing here on Earth. It's a battle of good and it's a battle of evil. It's a battle of flesh and a battle of Spirit. It's a battle of our marriages and our children. And it's a battle for our life for where our souls spend eternity. If this episode feels heavy friends, it's because it is. We must wage war on the unchecked sin in our lives. Because if we don't, it will destroy us. And I am speaking from raw experience with a testimony that will rock your foundation if you knew the depths of it. Galatians 519 to 21 talks about earthly struggles. If I can be honest, and transparent, these are uncomfortable and they are hard to talk about. Because they named the parts of us that don't end up on our social media highlight reels, but we have to talk about them. Because once we shine a light in the dark places, and with enough truth, and with enough prayer, the dark places, they aren't so dark anymore. So we name the works of the flesh and we feel the conviction in our hearts desire to change. And then we make a conscious effort, day in and day out, to walk in lockstep with the Holy Spirit and do just that. Galatians 5 then goes on in verses 22 and 23. To talk about the holy desires of the Spirit. It reads, I'm gonna say it again. Verse 22, sorry. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things, there is no law.” Paul, the writer of Galatians offers us hope for this battle, because we can't win it on our own. We can't do it on our own, asked me how I know. I spent years striving to accomplish this on my own. And it was only in sweet surrender, that I was able to achieve it. The flesh and the spirit are against one another, but stand in hope, my sweet listeners, this spirit is stronger than our humanity. I know this because in verse 24, we're told those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires amen to that! When we give our life to Jesus, the desires of our flesh don't stand a chance against the holiness of the Lord. We become refined in Him and in His new way of living, we're able to bear the fruit of the spirit we find in verses 22 and 23. So, this season, we're going to dive into each of these fruits, and what bearing them means for our lives. We're going to talk about seasons of pruning and seasons of harvest. The pruning is hard and the harvest is fun. I cannot wait. And I hope I hope you are just as jazzed about this as I am. And yes, I just said jazzed. Don't judge me. So my friends, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. This is what we're going to learn about this season. I hope you enjoyed this foundation for all of that. In episode one of season three. I still can't believe we're here. I know this was a really heavy opening episode. I get it. You're probably a little mind blown. Maybe scared. I know. But it needed to be heavy. Because I needed to lay the foundation for the good, pleasing, beautiful fruit that is coming next. There is so much jam packed in this season. So send me a message. I always love hearing your thoughts. Come back next time. I promise you we are going to throw encouragement around like confetti. Be careful. If you get too close. You just might get some on you. And as always friends remember. There's always always always something to be thankful for. Ciao. Thank you for joining me Desireé Melfi Bozzo for this episode of Life out loud. I would love to hear from you. Leave me a comment. Tell me what topics you want to talk about and how you take your coffee. If you enjoyed what you heard, text a friend the link share it on social media. Or if you're interested in becoming a supporter, be-bop over to my webpage life out loud dot me and sponsor a cup of coffee that keeps this podcast fueled. Until next time sweet listeners!