As I continue reflections in Galatians and learning how to live free, I want to hang out in the orchard another week to reflect on the fruit of the Spirit. This fruit can seem mysterious. How it appears is largely confusing because we do not have a good grasp on the role of the Holy Spirit. We seem out of balance in our estimation of Him. We have difficulty believing in something we can’t see. In my experience, it seems those that elevate God’s truth over His love devalue the role of the Spirit. Those that elevate God’s love over His truth raise the Spirit to a position God never intended. Once we understand His role, we can then navigate how the Holy Spirit works and the fruit He grows resulting in a lasting Kingdom impact.
The Role of the Holy Spirit
John 14-16 has a lot to say about life in an orchard. Jesus compares Himself to a vine and His followers as branches that need to stay connected to the vine. It also tells us the role of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told His disciples that it was good for Him to go so that the Helper could come (John 16:7). When He came, He would live in them to teach them everything they needed to know about Jesus and His Kingdom. He would also be their guide and provide comfort (John 14:16-26).
Jesus is saying it is better to have the Holy Spirit in us to teach us God’s Word so that He can guide us through this world until the appointed time He will return and set up His Kingdom. Spirit power indwelling us is greater than Jesus physically walking alongside us on this present earth. This was mind blowing to the disciples when He said it and it is still hard to comprehend today. We have access to the very power of God and yet we do not value it. We treat it lightly. Or we just fail to understand how it works.
How the Holy Spirit Works
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came and went as God directed for His purposes to point His people to the Messiah to come. In the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit took on a more personal role. Along with signs and miracles to confirm Christ’s teaching, He took up permanent residence in believers at the first Pentecost after Christ ascended to heaven (Acts 2). Since then, He regenerates new life at the moment someone accepts Jesus Christ as Lord (Titus 3:5). He then indwells the body of the believer as a temple of God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). We are dead to sin and no longer have to plug in to its power and raised to walk in this new life where we plug into Spirit Power.
Yielding is Active in Growing Spiritual Fruit
As we stay plugged in to the Spirit, He grows fruit. I tended to think that I needed to do something or try harder to get more of it. After studying Galatians, I think it is an action the Holy Spirit does to me as I yield to Him. The only thing I am doing is the yielding. It is hard to wrap my brain around yielding. It seems so passive, like I am not doing enough. In reality, it is very active but the Spirit is effecting the work done to me when I release control to Him. This requires faith. I have to trust the Spirit will do what He says as I lean in to Him and wait.
Planting, watering, and feeding all sound nurturing. However, the best way to grow more fruit is to be pruned, the more pruning the more fruit come harvest time. Because pruning hurts, it can feel like the Spirit has left me hacked and barren. But if I don’t give up to soon, a great harvest of spiritual fruit is the result. The cycles of the harvest that continue become my walk.
What Fruits Does the Spirit Grow?
The fruit the Spirit bears as I maintain disciplines in my walk with Him are worth the pain caused by pruning. John Stott says these Christian graces are attitudes toward God (love, joy, peace), man (patience, kindness, goodness), and self (faithfulness, meekness, self-control) that the work of the Spirit within accomplishes.1 It’s not as though the fruit is completely mature in one before the Spirit starts to plant the seed of another. The growth occurs at different rates as the cycles of harvest continue.
Below are definitions of the fruit listed in Galatians 5 using Zodhiates dictionary.2 There is no need for an external law to curb our behavior when we produces attitudes that please God. All of the fruit we bear here for God’s glory have impact in the Kingdom to come. Nothing is wasted. May that spur us on as we look forward to Christ’s return.
Love – affection, devotion, goodwill while sacrificially doing what is best for the recipient more than what they desire.
Joy – gladness of heart, exultation and exuberance of spirit regardless of circumstance because it’s based on eternal promises.
Peace – a state of tranquility and harmony arising from reconciliation with God and a sense of divine favor and every kind of good.
Patience – the ability to suffer long and forbear before proceeding to action; able to avenge oneself but refrains from doing so, choosing to endure the circumstance instead.
Kindness – a disposition of usefulness which pervades the whole nature, mellowing all that would be harsh.
Goodness – energized zeal for excellence manifested in active benevolence.
Faithfulness – persuasion based on being convicted of what is real resulting in a pledge of sincere character.
Meekness – an inwrought grace of the soul that accepts God’s dealings with us as good and therefore does not dispute or resist; a balance born in strength of character that demonstrates gentleness, not in weakness, but in power.
Self-control – contentedness resulting in temperate restraint of one’s desires.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness (meekness), self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 ESV
John R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians: Only One Way. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968.
Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament. Chattanooga: AMG International, 1993.
