“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5:13-26)
When we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we are filled with the Holy Spirit to guide us. As we abide in the Spirit and allow Him to guide us, we grow in our walk with Christ. Through our sanctification, we become more like Christ through guidance from the Holy Spirit. As we see in this passage from Galatians, the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. How do we attain this fruit and embody these characteristics?
In my previous blog post, we examined how abiding in Christ produces fruit by Christ’s love flowing out through us. Likewise, abiding in the Holy Spirit allows us to take on this fruit of Christlike character. As we grow in sanctification, our character should increasingly resemble the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Since sanctification is the process by which we become more like Christ, the fruit we produce will be both Christlike character and Christlike actions. We attain both of these through our relationship with God.
As we examine our lives, can we say that we are producing more fruit than a few years ago? Can we say that we embody love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? Christ offers this fruit only through a relationship with Him. If we attempt to earn favor with God through bearing fruit of our own effort, we end up with rotten fruit and struggle to attain the fruit of the Holy Spirit. A sign of rotten fruit is a feeling of obligation to perform the good work or follow a religious rule; fruit produced by Christ’s love flowing out from us will be performed in a way consistent with the characteristics of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We will not feel obligated to perform or consider the action as some kind of burden we must endure to prove our devotion to God, but Christ’s love will move within us to make us want to bear fruit for His kingdom. Remember fruit is produced by abiding as a branch on the vine of Christ; when we seek to produce fruit through our own effort we are a branch growing from the vine of self. Abiding in Christ and walking with the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit of Christlike character and actions.
Unity at the Cross 