In Galatians 5:22,23, the apostle Paul writes: "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" (New Living Translation).

When a believer displays the fruit of the Spirit, it will affect others' lives supernaturally. There's one stipulation: the fruit must come from the right source. We can try to muster up all the self-control of a Weight Watchers model, the joy of a Walt Disney World employee or the patience of a librarian. But those virtues usually only last for a while.

Evangelist Billy Graham says that 90 percent of all Christians in America live defeated lives. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, adds, "You may have a heart for God. You read your Bible faithfully, you pray, you witness, you are active in your church; yet year after year you continue to fight a losing battle."

Why is that? What do 10 percent of believers have that enables them to fight a winning battle? God's Word declares that when we submit our lives fully to the Lord, the Holy Spirit controls our lives, and over time, He will naturally produce fruit in us. We can't do it on our own.

Take Becky Vennetti, a recent bride, for instance. She offered her whole life unreservedly to the Lord. Long before her wedding plans began, she determined not to teeter between sin and God. Without unconfessed sin, communication between her and God stays open, and the Holy Spirit springs forth fruit in her.

In preparing for her Chicago wedding, she displayed self-control, goodness and patience. An employee at the shop where Becky had chosen her bridesmaid dresses had messed up her order entirely. A different saleswoman reconfigured it, then lost the order. Another lady took over, and mixed up the sizes of the dresses, the number ordered, and even lost the information about who had paid.

Becky prayed about the situation. She wanted her wedding, and the planning of it, to be a testimony of Jesus Christ to others.

Another manager detached from the situation called Becky and tried to shift the blame for the problems. Becky remained calm. She gently explained the misunderstandings to the manager. Rather than yelling or listing off all the company's errors, she extended grace. And she spoke about her relationship with Jesus to the woman on the other end of the line.

"Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves," says Oswald Chambers. "They ought simply to be magnets to draw to Jesus Christ."

Becky later met one of the bridal-shop workers. "You're the Christian," she said. "My co-workers have talked about you. Thanks for helping me be able to tell them about Jesus."

The Holy Spirit worked through Becky in that situation. He produced the fruit in her life; it influenced others and glorified Him. When we see oranges growing, we see them springing from a branch connected to the trunk of a tree. Becky was a branch feeding off the Master. Because she was linked to Him, without any unconfessed sin straining that connection, God was able to yield fruit in her life. And He used that to serve others.

God also serves people frequently through the life of Reuben Anderson, a chaplain at Sunbelt Nursing Home in Orlando, Fla. Reuben tells the residents about Jesus, but he relies on the Holy Spirit for the right timing and to bring the right people into his life. The Spirit produced the fruit of faithfulness in Reuben.

Every day the chaplain kneels before God and asks how he can serve Him. He asks the Lord to supernaturally use him in the lives of others. To date, he has helped lead 49 residents at Sunbelt to Christ. "It's the Holy Spirit," he insists.

Reuben sees every conversation with a resident as a divine opportunity to proclaim the good news. A woman heard about the reliable, retired real-estate agent who now serves as a chaplain. She called Reuben from another state to ask a favor.

Her unbelieving mother lived in a different assisted-living facility in the same city, but she asked Reuben to drive across town to tell her about Jesus. Spiritual matters in her house were taboo growing up. Now, as a Christian, though, she wanted her elderly mother to have an opportunity to commit her life to Christ.

Reuben thanked God for the chance to tell another person about Christ, and agreed to her request. "I don't know anything more exotic than a relationship with Christ," says Reuben, "where you can be a part of His redemptive program."

Reuben is not afraid to present people with the life-changing news of Jesus. The Holy Spirit gives him the inner peace he needs to be bold. So he met with the woman's mother. He sat down in her room and told her about his best friend and Redeemer, Jesus. She was intrigued. But Reuben didn't stop there. Sometimes Christians find the courage to talk about Jesus but are afraid to invite a personal response. "Fishermen gaff the fish," he says. "They pull them into the boat. So must believers."

Though this woman for years resented any talk about God, Reuben asked her, "Do you want to accept Jesus as your Savior?"

"Yes," she said. She finally understood what Christianity truly meant.

When we ask the Spirit to direct our lives, His character begins to form within us. That ripens into the fruit that He eventually uses to change the lives of others.

Jim Eng, a youth pastor in Colorado, knows that. He surrendered his life to Christ and said to Him, "Do whatever You want with it." To watch Jim's life is to look into a fruit orchard. Because he elevated his relationship with the Lord to his first priority, the Spirit bears obvious fruit in him. One such fruit is kindness, and it enabled him to help a gangster named Danny.

Danny went on a retreat with Jim and the youth group in the Rocky Mountains. The gangster hated hanging around all the Christian kids, so he set out to return to his "homies." He drifted out the side door during one of the meetings. Jim noticed, and caught up to him.

Danny blasted Christians while Jim listened. The teen made another attempt to leave. Jim would not let him. Danny mocked him and the teenagers inside, yet the youth pastor remained firm.

"God loves you," Jim said, pulling Danny into a hug. The gang member broke down and bawled on Jim's shoulder. "As the sun makes ice melt," writes Albert Schweitzer, "kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate."

That snowy night, Danny prayed and received Jesus as his Savior.

God has since turned his life around. He left his gang, then turned himself in to the police for wrongs he had committed before. While serving time in a juvenile detention center, the ex-gangster told his peers how Jesus had released him from bondage, and told them how they could ask Christ to do the same for them.

For God to use us to affect others' lives the way He did Becky, Reuben and Jim, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to empower us. The Holy Spirit indwells believers, but not every Christian is allowing Him to direct their lives.

"In order to be filled with the Holy Spirit a Christian must be dead to self," says Bill Bright. "When he is dead to self the Lord Jesus Christ, who now has unhindered control of his life, can begin to express His love through him."

We ask God to direct our lives. He generates the fruit. And people around us harvest the benefits.