Growing Fruit of the Spirit

Photo by Jo Sonn on Unsplash.

For Easter brunch, my sister and I shared mixed berry pancakes. The meld of blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries burst with flavor. Fortunately, we ate at a restaurant. While I have blueberry bushes at home, they’ve not produced berries yet this year. My blackberry bush died from neglect. I’ve not attempted to try for raspberries for fear of their demise. Growing good fruit is hard work.
 
In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul explains, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law” (NKJV). The Greek word for fruit is singular. These aren’t nine separate types of fruit. It’s like one diamond with many facets. Each fruit relates to the others and all have the same source. We want to display this type of fruit in our lives. We want to be patient and kind. No country has ever passed a law that would put you in jail for being too loving or joyful.
 
On the other hand, we find the fruits of the flesh. Warning, this list will probably leave a bad taste in your mouth. Cities have outlawed many of these things as harmful to society. Galatians 5:19-21 says, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (NKJV).
 
When left to our own devices, our lives produce all forms of wickedness. No amount of changing our outward behavior will change our hearts. Striving to improve frustrates us when we err again. If we try to love our friends and family, eventually, they will land on our last nerve and we may get angry. If we try to exhibit joy and then tragedy comes, we may become depressed. We can’t conjure up the fruit of the Spirit by force of will.
 
Instead, Galatians 5:24 says, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” We don’t just shove our flesh in a corner and ignore it. It won’t go away. Instead, we have to crucify the flesh with its desires. We have to kill it. The flesh and the Spirit war against each other. For the true fruit of righteousness to come through, it can’t be tainted with fleshly passions that poison the fruit. When we walk in the Spirit, the change comes from the inside out.
 
When we lay our angst before the Lord, God changes our hearts. Things that once would have triggered a harsh response, we can react with kindness that flows from above. Instead of yelling at the person who doesn’t use a turn signal properly, we choose to bless them.
 
As believers, the Holy Spirit lives inside us. In the Old Testament, people traveled to the temple to encounter God. Now, our bodies hold the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to fly to Jerusalem to hear from God. We carry the third person of the Trinity in our hearts wherever we go.
 
Because we live in the physical realm, it can be hard to grasp that the spiritual realm is superimposed on top of our lives. Just because we can’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. While we don’t see the smell of pancakes with our eyes, the scent still impacts how we taste food. The spiritual realm impacts how we digest the world around us because it touches every aspect of our lives. When we incorporate God in our daily routines, He remains seen in our mind’s eyes despite being invisible to our human eyes.
 
In the coming months, I will blog on each fruit of the Spirit to provide a deeper understanding of its role in our lives. The next blog will outline ways to walk in the Spirit so that the fruit grows naturally because we can’t produce it ourselves. May our lives display a mixed berry blend of the fruit of the Spirit as we taste and see that the Lord is good.
 

• Which fruit of the Spirit are you most interested to learn more about?
• Which fruit is the hardest to display in your life?
• How do you connect with the Holy Spirit so your life yields spiritual fruit?