Day 27: Fruit of the Spirit

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23)

We have been made alive through Christ. Originally we were dead in our sins. But God called us out of that darkness; He took the guilt of our sins away through the blood of Christ on the cross. And what's more, God's work did not stop there. After He ascended into heaven, He sent down His Spirit to live within us; to renew our hearts and minds - to make us holy.

When Christ died on the cross we were made alive again. We were once dead in our trespasses and sins, however, we have been made alive again. With this also comes an obligation. We now have the spirit to fight against our sins, to flee from them, and we also have the will to do good. Although remnants of our old nature still cling to us - we still desire to do sinful things - we have been given a new nature in Christ.

This new life is reflected by the fruit it bears. Just like a tree is known by its fruit, so we are known as regenerate man by the works we do. Paul describes the 'fruit of the Spirit' (that which the new man bears) as love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I would like to spend some time the next few days looking at these individually, but for now, the essence of all this is that as regenerate man, we must bear this fruit. We cannot claim that we are Christians yet in our lives show ourselves to be unchristian. The fruit of the man who has the Spirit dwelling in him is different from the works of the unregenerate man. Paul gives a description of their works: "adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like." And he adds that "those who practise such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."(Gal 5:19-21) Faith must be accompanied by the fruit of the Spirit. As James says: "faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." (James 2:17) Faith must be visible, it must be living in us.

Now all this is not easy; as Christians we are still tempted to fall back and follow the sinful desires of the old man, however, the more and more we fight against our sins, and the more and more we work to develop a closer relationship with God, the more and more we will see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

And all this we cannot do alone. The Holy Spirit within us works this desire to bear good fruit; its to Him that we can come in prayer and ask for the strength to fight against our sinful nature and so put on 'love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control'.