DON'T BE A COCONUT: How to Live the Fruit of the Spirit

By Katie Deyo

The fruit of the Spirit, found in Ephesians 5:22-23, can and will transform your life. The fruit of the Spirit--love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control--aren't just a to-do list. Each one is an attribute to God and each other. These qualities are given to us by God when we accept Him and His Spirit comes to live in us. But they are not gifts we just passively receive. God wants us to join in growing the fruit in our lives by making intentional choices.Named after the "Fruit of the Spirit" children's song by Uncle Charlie.The fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut; the fruit of the Spirit's not a coconut; if you want to be a coconut; you might as well hear it; you can't be a fruit of the spirit; cause the fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798886440638

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Introduction

1: Love

2: Joy

3: Peace

4: Patience

5: Kindness

6: Goodness

7: Faithfulness

8: Gentleness

9: Self-Control

Conclusion

About the Author

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DON'T BE A COCONUT: How to Live the Fruit of the Spirit

Katie Deyo

ISBN 979-8-88644-062-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88644-063-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2022 Katie Deyo

All rights reserved

First Edition

All scriptures, unless otherwise stated, are taken from the New International Version of the Holy Bible.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

This book is dedicated to all of my teachers and teachers everywhere; it is because of you I can read and write, teaching me that was no small task.

But the fruit of the Spirit is

love,

joy,

peace,

patience,

kindness,

goodness,

faithfulness,

gentleness,

self-control;

against such things there is no law.

—Ephesians 5:22–23 ESV

Introduction

I'm just a girl trying to follow God's plan for my life one day at a time. In January of 2020, God made it clear to me that a bunch of crazy thoughts I was having needed to be a book about the fruit of the Spirit. I didn't know what the book would become or how the heck I, Katie Deyo, would have anything to say that would constitute a book, maybe a brochure or a booklet. But God showed me, one step at a time, what to write. Okay, it's not like God showed the biblical authors what to write; I'm not claiming that. God gave me the topics, and the rest just fell into place as I followed the direction He gave me.

What it amounts to is this: The fruit of the Spirit, found in Ephesians 5:22–23, can and will transform your life—and all the more if you put in the work. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—aren't just a to-do list though. Each one is an attribute of God, and each of these qualities are given to us by God when we accept Him and His Spirit comes to live in us. But they're not gifts we just passively receive. God wants us to join in growing the fruit in our lives by making intentional choices.

Before we proceed, you need to meet a few people: first of all, Paul, who wrote the letter that contains the fruit of the Spirit; second, me and some of the people, who have been vital to my growth as a believer.

Paul

It is often said that after Jesus, Paul is the most important person in the history of Christianity. In the first half of his life, he was known as Saul, and he was a Greek-speaking Jew. Saul was a Pharisee, a leader in the Jewish traditions. Saul is self-described as the best Jew and the best Pharisee (Philippians 3:5). He was highly educated and knew the bulk of the Jewish scriptures by heart. Saul was also handy and was a trained tentmaker. The Pharisees were the chief prosecutors of the newborn Christian church; Saul was well-known for causing havoc to new Christians.

Saul took a business trip to Damascus, a city inside modern-day Syria, where he planned on imprisoning anyone who had become a Christian. Before he arrived, a light flashed around him. Saul hit the ground, and Jesus spoke to him. When he got up, Saul couldn't see anything. Jesus connected Saul to a Christian leader in Damascus, who placed his hands on him, and something like scales fell from Saul's eyes. Saul promptly received Jesus as his savior and later became known as Paul (Acts 9:1–19).

Paul was so excited to know the truth of God's love he started preaching immediately. He was mentored by several Christian leaders and spent time in fellowship with his new church family. Paul spent the next twenty years sharing the good news of Jesus Christ near and far. Paul traveled all over, from Israel to Europe and Asia. During this time, Paul established many churches and discipled many pastors and evangelists. Paul was in multiple shipwrecks, was beaten and whipped on many occasions, spent the last decade of his life in prison—all because of his relentless devotion to spreading the news of Jesus Christ.

There are sixty-six books in the Bible—thirty-nine on the Old Testament (before Jesus) and twenty-seven in the New Testament. Paul wrote thirteen of those books, which were letters to specific churches or people. They were so rich with wisdom that the letters were passed around and shared among Christians. Included in these letters was the book of Ephesians, a letter to the church in Ephesus, which contains the fruit of the Spirit.

Me and My People

I was baptized into the Episcopal Church as an infant and grew up in various Episcopal Churches. I have always loved kids, like ever since I was still in diapers. My parents got me a real baby when I was almost two years old, or at least that was my assessment of the situation. I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher and a mom. I ran the church nursery when I was twelve years old and started teaching Sunday school classes when I was thirteen years old. I babysat so much that I invested money in a mutual fund when I was fifteen years old.

In January of 2001, I accepted Jesus's free gift of salvation in the cafeteria of Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio. After my sophomore year, I spent a year helping with kids programs at Good News Church in Split, Croatia. While I was there, I grew up and learned to eat a variety of foods. I returned and finished my bachelors in early childhood and elementary education at Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. While in Springfield, I interned under Melissa White, an amazing children's pastor, and became a licensed pastor in August of 2005. Served as a children's pastor at Lighthouse Christian Fellowship in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and at Bridgeview Church in Big Lake, Minnesota.

During the 2008/2009 recession, I found myself in my parents' guest room back in Cincinnati, Ohio, where God changed my life trajectory again. I started volunteering and then became full-time staff with the Coalition of Care, an organization that connects Christ followers with vulnerable children. I was ordained in 2015. I am a foster parent and have fostered 112 kids in the last four years. I talk about some of my kiddos in the book, but I have given them all a nickname for the purposes of confidentiality. I live in a high-crime, low-income, mostly Black neighborhood across from an elementary school in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I love it.

I want to tell you about a few people who have had a great influence on my life because their stories are intertwined with my own, and I wrote a lot about them.

First, my parents, Tom and Nancy Deyo. They are good parents, not perfect but really good parents. My dad was raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and my mom was raised on the right side of the river in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My mom was a beautician and met my dad when she cut his hair. My dad is an engineer by trade but spent most of his career climbing the ladder as a salesman and then a sales manager for an international cooperation. After we kids came into this world, my mom stayed home and managed our home. My dad's ambitions moved us from Bloomington, Minnesota, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Silver Spring, Maryland, to Anaheim, California, to Chicago, Illinois, and, ultimately, Cincinnati, Ohio. They have five kids, of which I'm the fourth. We all have great, big, huge personalities and are as different as can be. My dad can build or fix anything he sets his mind to, and my mom is so creatively talented. There is nothing they couldn't create if they wanted to. I am a unique combination of the two, both analytical and creative. They allowed me to be me. They never broke my spirit or made me become someone I was not. They are incredibly supportive of me, my ministries, and my family. I am who I am because of them.

Second, Bill and Lena Shrader were my Chi Alpha campus pastors at Wilmington College from 2000–2003. They introduced me to Jesus in a way no one else ever had. They answered thousands of my questions and inspired my walk with Christ through their examples as pastors, husband and wife, and parents. The foundation of my Christian walk is built by quotes and prayers from Bill and Lena. Both Bill and Lena are