Why are the fruit of the Spirit the character qualities that they are? Why are these important to our faith? I will analyze each character quality with various verses relating to it.
Gal. 5 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control."
Love
Love is listed first, as it is the most important character quality a Christian can have. Jesus said all the commandments hang on loving God with all our heart, mind, body and soul and loving our neighbor as ourselves. What does it mean to love? To REALLY love?
It means to be willing to sacrifice your own comfort for another so that they can be happy. It means being honest with ourselves, with God, with others. It means being happy when others are happy and being sad when they are sad. It means trying our best to make life better for the people around us. It means serving others as Jesus served them. It means having compassion on others and not judging them.
What did Paul say about love? 1 Cor. 13, "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing." As Jesus said of the Pharisees, "These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me." Don't let that you be you, with others and with God. Give God and others your WHOLE heart, because if you don't, what's the point? What else matters then? As Paul says, if you have everything in the entire world, but you don't have love, you have nothing. Also if you have every talent in the entire world, but you cannot love others, your life is pointless.
So what is love?
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Love does not get easily frustrated. Love forgives others without them having to apologize first. Love is happy when others are happy, even when you yourself are not happy. Love is humble, seeking the good of others before our own. Love endures through every trial and every hardship. Real love never dies. Real love gives until it hurts. Real love does not care about being comfortable or protecting one's ego. Real love is very, very strong.
Joy
"The joy of the Lord is your strength." Paul says, "Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice!" Jesus said he came to bring the GOOD news. He said he came that we would have life and life to the fullest. So do we? Do we have joy?
Joy is better then happiness, because it never goes away. Happiness is based on what happens to us, but joy is always there under the surface. Joy does not give up hope. Joy knows that God is good and He is watching out for us. Joy knows that, "God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Joy is being confident that I am a child of God, and I will see the glories of heaven someday.
Peace
Paul calls God's peace the "peace that passes all understanding." Augustine said, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee." David said, "He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul." Do you let God restore your soul?
Only when we know God can we really know peace, because we know He has us in the palm of his hands, every minute of every day. He is always watching over us. He is always protecting us. He ALWAYS loves us.
Peace is when we know it does not matter what we do, God will still love us. Peace is knowing for sure that we have a home in heaven someday. Peace is knowing God.
Patience
The world is incredibly impatient. The world is constantly rushing to the next thing, the next achievement, the next activity. But as Christians we know it all is really just chasing after the wind. Why do we need to hurry? What on this earth really matters?
We have a Godly perspective on things that makes us think twice. We can be patient with ourselves and give ourselves grace because God does. "We love because he first loved us." We can have patience with others because we begin to see them as God sees them. All people are made in God's image, whether they follow him or not. Therefore, they all deserve for us to be patient with them and treat them with respect.
Kindness
God showed kindness in forgiving us of our sins. Therefore we can show kindness to others. Jesus healed everyone he came in contact with. He had no prejudices. He was not a respecter of persons. Neither should we be unkind to anyone. Everyone deserves our kindness, regardless of what they have done or where they come from. It does not matter. We need to see them with God's eyes, and God loves everyone, because He created them.
Kindness is the opposite of being rude. Kindness is putting others' needs above your own. Kindness is giving someone clothes if they have a need and you have way more than you need. Kindness is giving someone food who may have had nothing to eat all day.
Jesus said, "Whatever you do unto the least of these you have done unto me." Kindness is listening to a child who may not be listened to by their own parents. Showing kindness to others does not go unnoticed by God. He is always watching us. He sees everything we do. Therefore, be kind to one another.
Goodness
Goodness is being good. We are to do the best we can to "live in a manner worthy of our calling." It is certainly not going to be easy. It is committing to live a life swimming upstream when everyone else is swimming down stream. It is a desire to be set apart, to be different from the world.
Goodness is striving to be good and pure in all that we do. In our thinking, in our actions, in our lives. Paul said, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Whatever we think about will control our actions. If we think about things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable and excellent we will act accordingly. If we keep our thoughts pure our lives will be pure.
God is supremely good. He is perfect. We will never be Him, but we must strive to be more and more like him everyday. Paul says in 2 Cor. 3, "We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." God is constantly transforming us, little by little. We are growing into an "ever-increasing glory." We will not arrive in this life, but we can strive toward being more and more godly.
Paul says, "Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me." Amen? We "press on." Stay in the race. Don't loose heart. And don't let Satan condemn you with guilt if you do mess up. All of us do. No one can say they are without sin. But we do our best.
Faithfulness
When we commit our lives to God we are making a promise that we will do whatever He calls us to. I did this when I was 14. That means, that even when times get hard, and they certainly have, I stay faithful to Him.
Faithfulness means keeping your promises. Do what you say you are going to do. Don't be tossed by the waves of the world. Don't let Satan get you off track for long. Everyone gets off some, but get right back in the game. Stay faithful to your commitment to follow Jesus with your whole heart, soul and mind. He is worth it. He is worthy of every bit of the commitment you made to Him. He didn't give up on you did he? No. He went all the way to the cross and let Himself be brutally slain for our sakes. He was faithful to us, so we should be to Him.
Gentleness
Jesus was gentle with everyone He came into contact with. The Pharisees were the opposite. They were hard and judgemental and rude and mean. Jesus forgave people no matter what they did. He healed them. He had COMPASSION on them. We are to be the same way with others. We are to be gentle on them.
How often does the church act like the Pharisees though? With homosexuals, with anyone who "sins" more then they, the church, think they do. But we ALL sin. For some it is homosexuality and for others it is gluttony. How many people in the church worship food and think there is nothing wrong with it? That too is sin.
We are ALL guilty before God, DAILY. John say, "If anyone says they are without sin they are a liar." In Romans it says, "There is no one righteous, no not even one." We are all fallen, broken and lost. Even after we find Jesus, we are still fallen, broken and lost. We will never be perfected in this life. Therefore how can we be hard on anyone else?
We need to be gentle with others. We need to give others grace, just as God shows grace to us DAILY. We are not called to sit in judgement on others. God is the judge, we are not. Therefore, learn to be more gentle, as Jesus was gentle.
Self-Control
Many people rather than trying to control themselves try to control others. The most controlling people are generally the most out of control with themselves. Gandhi said, "Whoever would seek to change the world must first start with himself." We all need to help ourselves, reign ourselves in. We are built with the desire to have control. The problem is that we turn that outward instead of inward. We are meant to have control over ourselves.
A good practical way to learn this is by fasting. Fasting is the fastest way to learn to say "No!" to yourself. But most of the time, we spoil ourselves don't we? At the faintest inkling of hunger we feel that we MUST eat. But we will not starve. We will survive. Jesus survived 40 days without food.
Usually we see no point in having self control with what we eat. How then will we have self control in anything else? I find it interesting that the fall of man was caused by eating. I wonder why that was. Perhaps if we can control what we eat we will be able to control every other area of our lives?
We are to seek to have self-control in money, for the love of money is the root of all evil. We are to strive for self-control of our emotions. Children do not know how to control their emotions, but as we become more and more mature we learn how to do this. We learn we cannot give into every whim we have to function in society. We learn that we must learn to say no to ourselves regarding many things.
Satan will try to make us go out of control many, many times. But if we listen to that small voice in our heads, we will be able to have better self-control. We all know what the right thing to do is. The problem is follow through. Will we obey the voice of God when He is trying to speak to us, when He is trying to stop us from doing something we will regret. We all know that voice. Try listening to it more often, and your life will be much, much better. :)
May God help you grow in each of these fruit of the Spirit. Pray that He would help you grow more and more every day. We can never be perfect, but we can strive to be more and more like Jesus every day.
Grace and peace be with you! God bless! :)
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