22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.However, before I start the series, I wish to speak a few words about the fruits of the Spirit in a general way. First of all, as you might notice from experience, several Christians you know, including ourselves, do not experience or exhibit these fruits of the spirit; moreover, there are a few Christians I know who show none of these nine fruit. Does this mean that this person is not saved? Maybe, but I would not be so hasty to come to that conclusion. Like I said, we do not exhibit all these qualities all the time and, also, some people have come from difficult backgrounds. The point is that just because the Holy Spirit resides in all of us upon receiving Christ does not mean that all of these fruit show up at the same time. Instead, it would be more appropriate to say that these nine qualities are the "fruit" of the Spirit's labor in your life over time and come with maturity. This is consistent with the passage in verses 16 through 18, which says,
16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.Thus, we experience these fruits of the Spirit as we grow in maturity and godliness (for more details on this process, refer back to my earlier post, "A Pattern of Growth: 2 Peter 1:5-7", where I discuss the details and action steps of growing in maturity. You will see that the fruit of the Spirit discussed in this series will begin to show up in the stage I called 'Godliness'.) These fruit cannot be forced through willpower, good acts, or good intentions, but are the result of spending lots of meaningful time with God (aka spiritual disciplines).
Additionally, I've found that these fruit of the Spirit are a really great tool for assessing if something is an idol. Galatians 5 tells us that the nine fruit are the result of a relationship with God. However, if you are personally reflecting on your values and realize that you are trying to gain the fruit of the Spirit through pursuing something besides God, that something is an idol for you. For instance, I once had a friend counseling someone who said that he had to get into a relationship with a specific girl because he wouldn't feel any peace without having the situation resolved and couldn't push himself to be patient or self-controlled until he and the girl had made some sort of solid commitment to each other. If you're paying attention, you can see that he listed three fruits of the Spirit as impossible to get except through a relationship with this girl. Clearly, this relationship was an idol, and my friend was able to council the guy better once we had applied the fruit of the Spirit rule. (You may remember that I have a past two part series on this blog called "Heavenly Wisdom". This verse is actually a helpful addition to those two verses when it comes to making difficult decisions. As with the other two, this passage has been really life changing and has guided me through very dark and cloudy waters.)
An additional nugget of wisdom comes from the end part of Galatians 5:23:
Against such things there is no law.To be succinct, try to avoid following rules/standards that tell you to avoid using one of the fruit of the Spirit since such a rule is likely not meant to make you more Christ-like. For instance, depending on one's background, a guy might have been raised with his peers telling him that gentleness is a sign of weakness and should be avoided. While this is an obvious example, it shows that a lot of what our culture tells us to do and be will contradict the fruit of the Spirit and thus should be ignored in such instances.
To conclude this general conversation on the fruit of the Spirit, let it suffice to say that these fruit are developed through spiritual disciplines over time and are essential to life and ministry. However, the point of this series will be focused on these nine fruit as standards for godly living. Therefore, while we develop these fruit over time and these fruit are the work of the Spirit instead of our own willpower, there are some very real ways in which we are called to emulate these nine fruit and track our progress in becoming Christ-like. To this end, I will do my best to clarify what the Bible teaches about these nine qualities and challenge you to seek growth in all nine ways. However, let me warn that this should not be used as a tool of guilt and self-condemnation, but should be pursued in the grace of God. 1 Peter 5:10 tells us that
10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.This verse is saying that, as we pursue God's glory, we will grow weak and maybe even falter, but we shouldn't let that discourage us, but rather trust God to give us the strength and grace to live out the godly life (there is a lot more written on this theme in my post "From Favoritism to Flourishing- Part 7 of 9: Grace Abounds: 2 Corinthians 9:8". Bear with me as I reference my own work, lol.)
The next post on this blog will start the fruit of the Spirit series with the first fruit: love. Until then...
In Christ,
Simeon Snow
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