The Spirit’s Fruit
A different look at a familiar Bible passage.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV)
These are two well known verses.
Many (including me) have worked to commit them to memory.
It’s fair we want to see these attributes in our lives, but before discussing them specifically, note the three verses that follow them.
And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Galatians 5:24-26 (ESV)
To be crucified is to be impaled on a wooden structure never to be removed until death occurs.
It is a slow and excruciating means of execution.
But Paul isn’t talking about the physical event. He is referring to something that has already happened to every believer of Jesus’s saving power in the spiritual realm.
When we accept Jesus as our Savior, at the very beginning of our ongoing eternal relationship with him, we take on his spirit, the Holy Spirit, and our own autonomous self is crucified.
Now I know what you are thinking (at least I think I do) because it is what I thought.
Then why do I continue to struggle with my bad thoughts and bad behavior?
Perhaps it is because crucifixion doesn’t instantly kill its victim.
The transition out of the old self and into a new transformed one is a process.
At some point in the process we begin to see that any life of true abundance in this present life can only effectively and joyfully come about through what God gives us — not what we try to do for ourselves through our own disciplines.
Our binary choice every day is to either continue living out the death-throes of our crucified criminal self on the cross or to accept from God his Spirit by asking and accepting his complete control of our lives.
With this choice in mind let’s now go back and look again at the Spirit’s special fruit in and for us.
The Holy Spirit’s fruit we are privileged to eat tastes like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Because it is his fruit in us, not our own, any opportunity for boasting how great we are is removed. We are not great people, we are beggars who found a banquet table prepared in the middle of our enemies and mess ups.
And here is a bonus reflection to consider.
Do you think there is a connection between the Fruit of the Spirit in the believer’s life and the fruit we will one day find on the Tree of Life described in Revelation?
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:1-2 (ESV)
