So what do we do with all these fruits? About the text: Page 3
In Galatians 5:22 (NIV) the Apostle Paul writes, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. Against such things there is no law.” When we are born again spiritually, God plants the seeds of the fruit of the Spirit into our own spirits. It is our responsibility to cultivate these seeds and cause them to grow. In Romans 5:5 (Amplified) the Apostle Paul writes, “…God’s love has been abundantly poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” The Holy Spirit has done his work in us; we must develop into the fullness that God has made us to become. The Holy Spirit is our ‘Comforter’ and ‘Teacher’ and ‘Helper’, but we must cause these fruits to grow in our lives – He does not do it for us.
As a Christian, these fruits should become our character. They should become second nature to us; instinct, if you will. According to Webster, that word ‘character’ means: all the things that a person does, feels and thinks by which that person is judged as being good or bad, strong or weak; all those things that make a person or thing different from others; special quality; the total quality of a person’s behavior, as revealed in his habits of thought and expression; a person’s attitudes, interests, actions; the qualities that distinguish one people from another class, description, disposition; individuality; kind; nature; personality; reputation; standing; temperament; mark; sign; symbol; type; peculiarity; and (my favorite definition of character!) a fixed, predictable image. Isn’t that good?! No matter what happens in our lives (and rest assured, trials and temptations WILL come), one or more of these fruits properly developed and producing in our lives will enable us to overcome that situation. God is a good God – He has equipped us with all that we need to live completely fulfilled, victorious lives! All we have to do is to learn how.
Hosea 4:6 (NIV) says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” I think the church has done a disservice to its body. They are really great at evangelism – getting us saved; but they have not been as good at teaching us how to live. In the days and weeks to come we will explore the fruits of the spirit, and learn how to cultivate them and cause them to grow in our lives.