Mrs. Rita D'Souza
Galatians 5:22 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control….”
The fruit of the Spirit are the result of the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives. The fruit are seen on the branches and yet the branches only bear the fruit but cannot produce them on their own. The branches need to remain fixed or attached to the main plant. The roots draw nutrients from the soil which are converted into sap which in turn flows through the main stem into the branches thus producing the fruit.
In John 15:5 - Jesus says “I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
No amount of self effort or struggle or resolutions on our part can produce the fruit of the Spirit. It is only when we abide in Jesus ie:
1. Continually cling to him in faith
2. Spend time in His presence and in His Word
3. Walk in obedience to Him (John 15:10)
that the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of the Galatians 5:22 in our lives in cooperation with our wills.
We need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. For example: the Holy Spirit may convict us of an area we need to change eg: the need to be more loving. We need to agree with him and ask him for his grace to change and then obey him, relying on his strength. We need to continually ask him to change us.
Love begins the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22. The fruit of love in a sense encompasses all the other fruit. If we are walking in love, we are obeying the Lord and have as a consequence his joy and peace (John 15:11). A loving person is patient, kind, generous, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled.
Moreover, love is the genuine motive or context for the other fruit to operate. Eg: if we are generous and give away all we have and our body to be burned, but have not love, we gain nothing – (1 Corinthians 13:3).
The fruit of love therefore is the yardstick of Christian maturity. Jesus said that a tree is known by its fruits and not gifts (Luke 6:43-44). The gifts speak about and reflect the goodness of the giver and once given are not taken back. A good exercise would be to evaluate ourselves and get our family members to evaluate us on the basis of 1 Corinthians 13.
The fruit of love begins with God’s love in our own hearts. Read 1 John 4:10. It is out of the love of God and because of our love for him that we love our neighbor. If we strive to grow in love without first having received the love of God and without first loving God, we will be walking in the flesh. Doing acts of love with the motive of impressing someone, drawing attention to ourselves or winning the praises of man or any other selfish motive is not genuine Christian love.
Christian love is unconditional, giving, sacrificial, serving, ready to walk the extra mile and reaches out in action not just words – read James 2:15-17.
However, very often it is easy to love when our feelings follow. It is easy to visit the sick and orphans and help the poor, but when we encounter “difficult” people who rub us up the wrong way – people who irritate us, hurt us, are ungrateful, rude, reject us etc, then our feelings pull us the other way.
It is then that we need to remember that Love is a decision. We are not called to like everyone, but to love everyone. To decide to love is to say yes to the grace of God and at the same time requires that we deny or not gratify the desires of our flesh – to have our own way, prove our point, satisfy our interests, hit back, etc. (Read Galatians 5: 16-21).
True Christian love is a decision to love imperfect people, at all times with the grace of God. To love with :
a. Thoughts: Critical thoughts will only hinder us from loving the person. We just need to bring all critical unloving thoughts into captivity to obey God.
b. Speech: Harsh, rude, sarcastic & cutting speech tears down someone. Our words need to be carriers of God’s love.
c. Actions: It is not enough to love with just words, but also with action, reaching out in service. We need to praise and thank God for all the “difficult people” in our lives because they are permitted by God to change us to make us more like him and develop the fruit of love in us.
Actually Christian love can be beautifully summed up in Phil 2:3-4 “..in humility, regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interest of others. It is a decision at all times to put the interest of others before ours – to do what benefit and be helpful to others, not hurt the other before considering myself.
Forgiveness is the true test of Christian love. “As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.” – (Col 3:12). Forgiveness too is a decision. 1 Jn 2:9 says –“He who says that he is in the light and hates his brother is in the darkness still.” We need to:
a. Decide to forgive and release them
b. Pray for them (Matthew 5:44)
c. Bless them – which includes speaking well of them (Romans 12:14)
d. Take definite steps (action) to do good to them (Romans 12:21)
e. Surrender our hurt feelings to the Lord and ask him to heal us (Psalm 34:18)
f. We need to ask God to change us and not others.
Christian love never gives up, just as Christ never gives up on us. It bears all things, is willing to believe the best of everyone, or willing to trust someone, is ever hopeful, endures all things and never ends. Let us continue to love and grow in love as God is love.
“And let us not grow weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap of we do not lose heart.” Galatians 6:9