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Praise the Lord!
Praise... Pray... Proclaim...
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Spiritual Food! |
Bible
Articles
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Fruit of the Spirit!
The fruit of the
Spirit refers to the virtues of love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (meekness, humility)
and self-control. When you display irresponsible behaviour, pride,
expressions of enmity, lack of love, and other works of the flesh
(Galatians. 5:19-21), you are lacking the fruit of the Spirit.
If you have been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are
eligible to receive the things of the Spirit of God. You must be
willing to let the Holy Spirit produce these virtues within you
(Gal. 5:22,23).
What Scripture Says
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against
such there is no law" (Gal. 5:22,23).
"I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust
of the flesh.... If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the
Spirit" (Gal. 5:16,25).
"If you love Me, keep My commandments.... He who has My commandments
and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be
loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him"
(John 14:15,21).
"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings
forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and
whatever he does shall prosper"
(Psalm 1:3).
How To Receive The Fruit Of The Spirit
In the life of the Christian, there is a law at work which is the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:2). When you
submit to and apply this law in your life, the Holy Spirit can begin
to manifest the fruit of the Spirit within you
(Romans 8:4).
As a Christian, you should seek the fruit of the Spirit, which is
the nature of Jesus being produced within you. Scripture makes it
clear that total surrender to Christ and His Word opens the way to
the life of fruitfulness and spiritual productivity. In practical
ways, you should put into action the admonition given in Ephesians
4:21-24: to rid yourself of all old deceitful desires, attitudes,
practices, etc. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who works
within you to present you blameless and holy unto the Lord.
It is important to understand that the Holy Spirit produces the
fruit or qualities of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). How does the
Spirit do this? You can find the answer by studying all Bible
references which relate to the fruit of the Spirit. For example, see
Isaiah 26:3 about "peace" and Romans 5:3 about "patience."
When God commands you to love Him and your neighbor, this is in a
very real sense a promise that the Holy Spirit will produce that
love within you. Yet there are practical steps you can take to allow
Him to do this. Select someone whom you should genuinely love, but
don't. Now ask God to give you a great love for that person. Then
ask Him to show you how you can bless him or her.
While waiting on the Lord to give you a genuine regard for the
person, begin to list all his or her good qualities. The more
praiseworthy things you discover, the more aware you will become of
what God sees in that individual. The more you are aware of what God
sees, the more you will find yourself rejoicing with love for that
person. Be sure to tell the person of your experience. Share the
praiseworthy things you have discovered.
As you receive love, you will also receive the other fruit of the
Spirit, including goodness, kindness, meekness (humble
submissiveness to God) and faithfulness toward the person and toward
God. Jesus says that when you have done something for one of His,
you have done it for Him.
When you have the fruit of the Spirit operating in your life, no one
can find a reason to accuse you before God. You will find yourself
able to get along with others and, in turn, they will be able to get
along with you.
As You Pray
Ask God to reveal any sin in you. Repent. He will cleanse you of
that hindering sin. Then you should ask for the fruit of the Spirit.
Commit yourself to a life in the Holy Spirit. He will then reveal
practical ways you can obey Him and use your God-given abilities to
help you mature spiritually (Hebrews 5:14). This process is a result
of your obedience and commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Praise and thank God for the grace that will help you to become more
like Jesus in character.
Suggested Reading
Psalm 1; Psalm 92:13,14; John 12:24;
John 15; Galatians 6:7,8; Ephesians 5:8,9 and James 1:21-25.
PAUL DESCRIBES IT
The most famous passage about the 'fruit of the Spirit' is in
Galatians 5:22, where Paul gives us a list of fruit. The list is
meant as a contrast to the list of the deeds of the flesh' found in
5:19-20. The fruit list is clearly not intended as an exhaustive
description of the fruit, but was given to highlight the fruit that
Paul wants the Galatians church to keep in mind. He lists the
following fruit:
love;
joy;
peace;
patience;
kindness;
goodness;
faithfulness;
gentleness;
self-control.
When Paul follows the list of the fruit of the Spirit by saying that
"against such things there is no law", he was talking about the fact
that the societal authorities find it pretty hard to object to
behavior that shows these characteristics. Even a staunch enemy of
the church will likely find these qualities appealing. They are
known to be positive characteristics by the general public, in most
eras, in most lands.
Let's look at a few of these fruit. I'll set 'love' to the side for
now, because Paul describes that well enough in 1 Corinthians 13,
and Jesus deals with it even better in the Gospels. Check them out
yourself, and see.
'Gentleness' is an interesting one. It has a tie-in to Jesus, too,
for didn't he speak of the meek inheriting the earth? The gift of
'gentleness' isn't about being wishy-washy, indecisive, unassertive,
or just plain wimpy. It is connected instead to a refusal to use
power over anyone, an unwillingness to cut and slash at people,
wounding them for vengeance, spite or control. It's about being out
to build people up instead of harming them or scaring them. There
are gentle ways to be bold, non-violent ways to stand up for what is
right, non-manipulative ways to lead and to convince. But it is not
in the human nature to be that way. It goes beyond 'instinct', or
'education', or 'society's influence'; we are simply not gentle
creatures. Certainly not males, despite the term 'gentleman'. Women
have historically been more gentle, but that is a relative matter;
they have their own ways of being vicious and destructive. No. If we
are to be truly gentle, we need God to give us the ability to be
gentle when it counts.
Then, there's 'long-suffering' or 'patience'. As someone who growls
when the car in front of me doesn't move when the light turns green,
I can't say that I'm a patient man. I'm a New Yorker, you
understand, and I'm raised to demand instant action. I live in a
fast-paced world which is getting faster even as age slows me down.
Life's too short. I do not want to sit still for other people's
troubles; my first instinct is to move on and let them stew in it.
Me, suffer over someone else? Bah! When I see someone spending a
large amount of time in devotions and prayer, my first thought is
that they're escapists running away from the world. Don't they know
they're running out of time?? There's too much to do, and curse to
hell anyone who gets in the way.
In that way, I am a man of my era. I'm today's human creature,
unwilling to put up with that which doesn't conform, ditching the
spouse if things aren't working out just right, making short-term
investments to make quick bucks, dumping chemicals in a nearby
stream (or a nearby slum), unwilling to wait until the commercials
are done to get something watchable on television. Those who bear
emotional burdens over those they love seem like fools who should
cut loose 'for their own good', or so it's said. However, the
Spirit, who can be faster than any of us, is not in it for the quick
hit. The Spirit counsels patience : you have all of eternity, and
all that is not joy today will pass away someday. Remember that God
wins in the end, and trust in that.
OTHER PASSAGES WHICH BEAR 'FRUIT'
Notice that the Galatians list is made of stuff that is both
something you are and something you do. It is the Spirit giving you
the character of Christ. There are other such lists in the Epistles,
and they are also relevant to any talk about the 'fruit of the
Spirit'.
In 1 Cor 13, in the midst of Paul's description of the gifts of the
Spirit, there is a section on love. While not directly about
'fruit', it is about what springs from love, and it is in much the
same vein. According to verses 3-8, love:
suffers long;
is kind;
does not envy;
does not parade itself;
does not get 'puffed up';
does not behave rudely;
is not provoked;
does not think evilly, nor rejoice in sin;
rejoices in the truth;
bears all things;
believes all things;
hopes all things;
endures all things.
In Phillipians 4:8, Paul advises us to think on things that are:
true;
noble;
just;
pure;
lovely;
of good report;
of any virtue;
worthy of praise.
In Colossians 3:12-16, the church members are told to put on (wear)
these things:
tender mercies;
kindness;
humility;
meekness;
patience.
Then, they are further instructed to:
bear with one another;
forgive one another;
love;
let the peace of God rule their hearts;
be thankful;
have the Word live in them;
teach and admonish one another;
sing with grace in their hearts.
This is all to be done in the name of Jesus, to further the purpose
He came for.
WHAT IS IT & WHERE IS IT FROM?
All of these lists are describing a Christian's character. There was
no word in there about being given the Midas touch for resolving all
financial woes. There's not even the slightest signal in there about
tongues being the evidence of the Spirit's presence. There's nothing
about crusading for a just society, though there is something about
being just. These lists are completely silent about miraculous deeds
or the gifts of wisdom or knowledge or discernment as signs of the
Spirit's rule within a person. It sounds instead like a repeated
refrain from Jesus (Matt 7:16, 20) that one knows God's followers
'by their fruits'. Or, like Paul's urgings that the Roman church
bear fruit for God (Romans 7:4), or James (James 3:17) about being
full of mercy and good fruit. Or John the Baptist in Matt 3:8, or
even the proverb (Prov 11:30) which says that "the fruit of
righteousness is a tree of life" (one of the earliest examples of
'fruit' to describe results). These matters of character are the
stuff that gives life-ness to life. It is something you are, not
just something you do.
In Jeremiah (6:19), God speaks of the disaster which is about to
come, and speaks of it as "the fruit of their plans" -- that which
comes from evil scheming. So bad character also comes to fruition.
The early church continued this concern about how those with the
Spirit develop a character like that of Christ's. Some of them spend
much of their writing time on describing what this character is.
Polycarp, for instance, in his letter to the church in Philippi,
wrote that the church's leaders are to have "a wide compassion for
humanity", which does not put off doing kindnesses. (Think here of
Jewish mitzvot , it's about going beyond merely doing good, into
being someone who is characterized by doing good, to honor God and
for the sake of others.) He, like Paul, also writes about what is
not a part of this character : gossip, the undermining of others,
easily believing ill of others, loose sexual behavior, empty speech,
quick temper, and most especially the eagerness for money.
The early Protestant pietists shared this concern. They knew from
Scripture that if the Spirit dwells in a person, that person will
start taking on the characteristics described as the fruit of the
Spirit. The Spirit works to change Christians so that they have the
depth of character the Bible talks about. It's not automatic or
sudden. Like everything else in this broken world and its broken
people, it's something that arises in part, not completely, in this
life. We are always 'under construction', just like any good web
site is. Many later pietists and Holiness believers, unfortunately,
forgot how deeply marred we are by sin, and saw failure to live in
these 'fruit' as proof that the Spirit was not at work. This
resulted in a new legalism made of a decision to obey behavioral
rules rooted in law, not in a soul which grew through the Spirit's
work to bear good fruit.
We don't need to turn to the Law to give rise to character in
ourselves and our children. We need to turn to the Spirit, and
understand that the Spirit will be working overtime to change us,
working literally till Kingdom come, refashioning us into being like
Christ.
The early church understood this. They didn't go around saying that
they had the Holy Spirit and thus needed no human teachers. They
instead upbraided and corrected each other, and those who understood
the Christian way best (especially the apostles) taught it to the
others. Even the apostles were not above correction, as Paul so
sharply points out in Galatians. They understood that by way of
mutual education and the use of discernment, in the power of the
Holy Spirit, they could grow as Christians. The evidence of that
growth was the fruit.
ON RECONCILIATION AND UNITY
Unity is one of the fruit of the Spirit. But not always immediately.
Jesus' work set father against son and mother against daughter, and
the Spirit takes after Jesus' ministry. In Acts 15, even though the
Jerusalem Council was being guided by the Spirit, division arose. It
takes some wrestling with the matter, a struggling done with an
attitude of submission, of 'show us, Spirit!'. While this is going
on, we may differ, even vigorously. But the disagreement itself can
be part of the process the Spirit uses to get the matter sorted out.
Often what results is a surprising unity, in which we have
spiritually grown and stepped toward the future in a vision for
mission. Sometimes the disunity may represent differing paths which
may have to co-exist in tension, at least for a while, to inform and
correct each other. Either result can be fully in keeping with the
Spirit's work.
The organism known as the Christian Church is able to hold and to
benefit from the human race's many cultures, outlooks, theologies,
histories and styles. Yet that Church can only be catholic ('of the
whole') when it embraces and sustains the whole truth. That means
not just being broad in most ways, it also means being clear about
what to reject.
Conformity and uniformity tend to be deadening, but at specific
times may be crucial to the task at hand. Try, for instance,
fighting to defend one's country against invaders. If everyone had a
different type of gun, the supply of munitions would be impossible
and the nation would fall. Or, can you picture how repairs would be
done if every individual car's parts were all unique to that
particular car? The core identity of the Christian faith is what
identifies church from non-church, it is what allows us to operate
together, even for a moment, even on any one matter, as if we were
one body. In a way, we are, or so says the Bible.
back to top
RECAP
Where there are 'the fruit of the Spirit', the Spirit is at work. We
can trust that.
We can't be godly apart from the Spirit; we just don't have that
ability.
As a matter of our nature, we are hell-bent on getting what we
desire. Even the best of what we are gets twisted by this inner
drive.
God has a very different way, and wants us to follow it. Since we
can't, the Spirit grows us up, cleans us up, and makes good
('fruit') come from us, in the manner of Jesus Christ.
Each person in the Spirit has a different share of each fruit, and
each fruit has a different shape in each person -- but all the fruit
will show themselves in each Christian as he or she goes deeper into
their walk with the Spirit
Fruit of the Spirit - Visible Growth in Jesus Christ
"Fruit of the Spirit" is a biblical term that sums up the nine
visible attributes of a true Christian life. Using the King James
Version of Galatians 5:22-23, these attributes are: love, joy,
peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and
temperance. We learn from scripture that these are not individual
"fruits" from which we pick and choose. Rather, the fruit of the
Spirit is one ninefold "fruit" that characterizes all who truly walk
in the Holy Spirit. Collectively, these are the fruits that all
Christians should be producing in their new lives with Jesus Christ.
Fruit of the Spirit - The Nine Biblical Attributes
The fruit of the Spirit is a physical manifestation of a Christian's
transformed life. In order to mature as believers, we should study
and understand the attributes of the ninefold fruit:
Love - "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is
love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him" (1 John
4:16). Through Jesus Christ, our greatest goal is to do all things
in love. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does
not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does
not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails" (1
Corinthians 13:4-8).
Joy - "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10). "Let
us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who
for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame,
and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).
Peace - "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in
him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy
Spirit" (Romans 15:13).
Longsuffering (patience) -- We are "strengthened with all might,
according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering
with joyfulness" (Colossians 1:11). "With all lowliness and
meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love"
(Ephesians 4:2).
Gentleness (kindness) -- We should live "in purity, understanding,
patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in
truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of
righteousness in the right hand and in the left" (2 Corinthians
6:6-7).
Goodness - "Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God
would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good
pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power"
(2 Thessalonians 1:11). "For the fruit of the Spirit is in all
goodness and righteousness and truth" (Ephesians 5:9).
Faith (faithfulness) - "O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee,
I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy
counsels of old are faithfulness and truth" (Isaiah 25:1). "I pray
that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power
through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in
your hearts through faith" (Ephesians 3:16-17).
Meekness - "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are
spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).
"With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one
another in love" (Ephesians 4:2).
Temperance (self-control) - "But also for this very reason, giving
all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to
knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to
perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to
brotherly kindness love"
(2 Peter 1:5-7).
Fruit of the Spirit - A Devotional for All Christians
The fruit of the Spirit is a wonderful study for Christians at any
level of spiritual maturity. We hope this website provides a
thought-provoking devotional and a springboard for growth.
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