190. The Fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spiritis love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
It is crucial to our understanding of Fruit to understand it as a promise, not as a directive. It is Gospel, not Law. As Law, it would be a command: you must live like this: do this, be like this, show this fruit in your life. But it is not a command; it is a promise: Repent and believe the Gospel and you will live like this; your live will exhibit this fruit. Fruit is a result of the Spirit within; the Spirit is a result of faith in Christ; faith is a result of hearing and believing the Gospel. The Gospel is God’s work: the Holy Spirit creates the faith, and the Spirit produces the fruit. The promise is that your life will look like this.
The Fruit of the Spirit is singular; it is not plural, fruits, and the whole life is one big picture. It is beautiful.We are not to separate out the various nine aspects of fruit and then try to produce them. We do not work on each one of the nine at a time until we have it down. We just walk by faith; we live our lives out of a continuous faith that rests inside. Concentrate on Jesus, not the fruits.
We do not produce fruit, or even try to do it. Jesus told us to “abide in the vine,” and then the fruit grows on the branches.The branch cannot by effort grow fruit; the branch is simply connected to the vine. “Abide” = living, residing, dwelling, and resting. The Christian Life abides; it does not strive. And what happens? He grows the fruit. He gives us this promise so that we may know what Christ looks like, what the Christ who lives within looks like. Jesus tells us that fruit bearing as the purpose of life.
Our own life will not always, or even often, bear the fruit of the Spirit loudly and clearly; Self and Sin and Flesh show themselves quite clearly, and these “works of the flesh” are all too easy to see. So the Christian life is mixed. When we see the Sin we repent and come back to the Gospel; and this must be done again and again. To abide in Christ is not as simple as it sounds. We are continually tempted to try to be better and look good. This is why God gives us the fruit of the Spirit as a promise. Believe the promise and rejoice in the Lord.
For instance, we don’t work to develop patience; instead, when trials and disturbances arise look to Jesus, thank Him, receive His grace, and listen to the Gospel: patience will be developed by the Holy Spirit. Look to Jesus, not at the problem. Trust, and let Him do it.