Fruits of the Spirit II ...

Wednesday, June 12, 2013. We have been looking into Galatians 5 on Monday, into the passages about the “fruits of the spirit”. Let us stay with these words today. We want to explore their meaning for us in more depth …

The Fruits of the Spirit …

Recall the passage of the apostle Paul about the fruits of the spirit: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

We might think that these positive fruits of the spirit are some type of “ideal life”. What are your ideas about living in “love, joy, peace”? Do you think about an environment, where everything is fine? Do you imagine a world without problems? Do you imagine a life environment, where you have enough reasons to feel joy, where you are strongly loved … and where nothing else is present?

But the main purpose of the above passage is not to make us dream of such special environment. On the contrary, it is to make us think about our current environment. It is to help us in the middle of our life here on earth. It is to bring love, joy and peace into our trouble. It is to bring kindness into our fights and our daily work. It is to bring faithfulness into our challenges.

How to? …

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How do we get there? How do we experience the fruits of the spirit?

The above experiences are called “fruits” of the spirit. They are not called “conditions” of the spirit. They are not called “rules” of the spirit - though many of them are given to us as basic rules as well. But they grow, when the spirit lives in us and with us. That is an important observation. We WILL experience these fruits, when we walk and live with the Lord!

It is God's power which enables us to be patient and calm in the middle of problems. It is his love, which is flowing into our heart through the spirit. It is his joy and his peace, which is coming to us and into us. When we lack the wisdom to make the right choices, when we feel weak and lonely and in danger, then we can go to him, search him, pray and believe and live with him … and his help and presence has been a promise ever since and continuing experience of believers throughout history.

There is no doubt, that believers will experience the fruits of the spirit, when they walk with the Lord. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts