PUMPKINS

Look at that big momma!  Ain’t she a beauty?  That’s my pumpkin plant.  Yep, right in my front yard.  I love pumpkins.  I don’t know what it is about them.  Maybe it’s the reminder of fall.  Maybe because their color is so rich.  Maybe because they’re just kind of goofy looking – bumpy, lumpy, misshapen.  I don’t know why – I just love them.

This pumpkin plant is special to me.  I’ve always wanted to grow pumpkins, but have had very little, actually, no success.  I’ve planted pumpkins three different times, using three different techniques, in three different places on our property.  The first time, I dug up the soil, carefully placed the pumpkin seeds in holes two feet apart, and mounded the soil on top of them – that’s what the package said.  They never came up.   The second time, I tried the “container method.”  Starting from seeds, I dug a hole, placed the seeds in the hole in a container.  After the plant became strong and mature, I was going to remove it from the container and place it in the ground.  It never came up.

My third attempt was successful, as you can see.  I got a pumpkin last year at Orr’s Farm Market. It sat on my porch through fall and when it started to cave in a little I thought I’d try to harvest my own seeds.  Maybe that was the problem with my other two attempts.  You know, GMO.  So, I harvested my own pumpkin seeds.  It was a painstaking task, ahem.  I picked this caving pumpkin up – if you’ve ever waited too long to remove your pumpkin you know what happened.  It turned to mush in my hands and I dropped it beside my front porch.  I had every intention of going out and cleaning it up.   You know what they say about good intentions…As the story goes  – fall became winter, winter became spring, spring became summer, and summer became pumpkin!  A pumpkin plant right in my front yard!  My very own victory garden!

I am so excited about this pumpkin plant.  It really is huge, probably about 8×10 and it continues to grow.  As you can see, it overtook my rooster, it has overtaken my sidewalk, and I have no doubt it will continue through the front yard to the road in front of our house.  The leaves are so big you could use them as umbrellas.  The blooms are gorgeous, brilliant orange.  It looks so healthy.  There’s hope!

There’s only one small problem – it has no pumpkins.  Not a one.  Zero.  Zilch.  Zip.  Nadda.  Oh, it started out on the right path. We had one pumpkin about four weeks ago.  It got to be about six inches in diameter well on its way to Great Pumpkin fame!  One day I walked outside and my Great Pumpkin had started to rot.  Aaahhh!!!  My neighbors heard that.  Anyway,  I have this massive, beautiful pumpkin plant and no pumpkins.  Folks, I got no fruit.  We’ve theorized about the lack of fruit.  Too wet?  Definitely not too dry!  Bad seeds?  They came from last year’s perfect pumpkin.  Not the right soil?  Look at those healthy leaves and the size of that thing and tell me the soil’s not right.  Lack of pollination?  Haven’t seen bee one.  There’s only one explanation – it’s not getting something it needs to produce fruit.  Duh, you say.  Now I’m no horticulturalist so I don’t really know what the problem is, I just know there’s a problem.  To be honest, I don’t care what the problem is, I just want pumpkins!  A colorful, beautiful, lush, fruit bearing plant is no good without fruit!  A pumpkin plant has one job in life — to produce pumpkins.

Paul tells us, just like the pumpkin plant purpose, our lives too are to be all about the fruit:

But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Here there is no conflict with the law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.  If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.  Galatians 5:22-25

Do we have fruit?  What’s our fruit look like?  Ouch – get off my toes!

You see, there are two forces at work in our world.  Sin (evil) and God (good).  Our sinful nature, which leads to death (destruction) and our Spirit nature, which leads to life (eternal fruit producing life).  When we follow the desires of our sinful nature (our old life) we cannot follow the desires of the Spirit (our new life).  If we do, we are not changed.

So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit.  Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.  The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants.  And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires.  These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict.  But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law.  Galatians 5:16-18

Our sinful nature is in direct contradiction to our Spirit life.  Our sinful nature is what the law speaks against.  The law that’s designed to protect us.   The law has never been able to change our sinful hearts.   Only Christ’s sacrifice on that cross could offer freedom from the law.   People thought they could gain acceptance by God by being obedient to the commandments, by following the rules.  Impossible!  You see it’s about the heart – it’s about the Spirit.  Our sinful nature cannot produce fruits of the Spirit.  Only changed hearts and the indwelling of the Spirit can produce good fruit – the Great Pumpkin!  If we are being ruled by our sinful nature (it’s all about me) and not by our Spirit nature (it’s all about God) we will not produce the fruits of the Spirit.

If our hearts are changed, we will want to keep his law, not to gain His acceptance, but out of our great love for Him.  In Psalm 40:8, David wrote “I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”  If our hearts are changed, our lives are changed.  If our hearts are changed, the Holy Spirit is in control.  If the Holy Spirit is in control, we produce good fruit, Holy Spirit controlled fruit!

In Romans, Paul quotes King David from the Psalms when he says there is no one perfect, “not even one!”  But that does not give us an out.  Matthew 5:48 says:  “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  We cannot be flawless, completely without fault, but we are to make it our goal to be as much like Christ as possible.  When we do, the fruit appears.

So, I ask again:  Do we have fruit?  Have we turned from our sinful nature to the Spirit nature?  What’s our fruit look like?  Have we nailed our passions and the desires of this world to His Holy Cross?   The ways of the world are very wily.  The world will tell us it’s enough to have beautiful, healthy looking leaves – to be big and powerful — and to have beautiful blooms.  That’s a lie.  The world doesn’t care about our fruit.  The forces of the world don’t want us to have fruit.  Have we given the Spirit full reign to produce good fruit within us or do products of the sinful nature still appear in our lives?