Knowing Him Daily

08.September.2026

Before fruit can grow, a seed has to be planted. Nothing about this happens automatically. There’s a beginning place, a moment someone plants a seed in us. Once it’s in the ground, it has to be tended, watered, given attention, before roots ever start to form. And it’s only after those roots go deep and become solid that we can call it what we as Christians call it, rooted. What we’re rooted in matters more than we often admit.

That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Ephesians 3:17-19

Rooted and grounded in love, His love, before anything else. You cannot pour out what you’ve never received. Try to love others from a well that’s never been filled and you get performance, not fruit. But when you actually know how much you are loved, something grows naturally out of that, without you having to force it.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 
Galatians 5:22-23

Notice it’s fruit, singular in character even though it lists several qualities, not a checklist you work through one at a time. It grows together, out of one root, the same way an apple tree doesn’t produce the fruit by trying harder. It produces fruit because of what it’s connected to.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Matthew 7:20

This is where discernment comes in, not judgment of someone’s worth, but recognition of what’s actually growing in their life. We’re not called to condemn people. We are called to pay attention, to what comes out of someone’s mouth, how they carry themselves, what their life produces over time, because who we let close to us matters. Show me your closest few friends and you’ll often see where your own life is headed. Protecting what influences your eyes, your ears, and your mouth isn’t being harsh, it’s being wise.

And when the Spirit does provoke us to speak into something we see, every word has to be seasoned differently than the world’s version of honesty.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. Ephesians 4:29

Good for edifying, and ministering grace. Not everything true needs to be said, and not everything said should go unfiltered without love. That’s fruit too, maybe the hardest kind to produce, because it requires restraint as much as courage.

There’s an old hymn that says they’ll know we are Christians by our love, and it traces back to something Jesus said Himself, that our love for each other is what actually proves we belong to Him. Not our arguments. Not our correctness. Our love, rooted first in how loved we already are.

Are you rooted deep enough in His love to let real fruit grow, or are you still trying to manufacture it on your own?

If you have never given your life to Jesus Christ, you can do that right now. Pray this with me:

Dear Heavenly Father, 

I confess that I have sinned, and I believe Jesus died for my sins and rose again on the third day. I ask Jesus, come into my heart and be my Lord and Savior. Thank You for saving me. 

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Make today count and see you tomorrow.