Fruit Of The Holy Spirit

The Bible says you can recognize a tree by its fruit (Matthew 12:33) … the same goes for Christians according to Galatians 5:22-23. I think it's interesting that the topic of "fruit" is often referred to when we talk about what took place in the Garden of Eden. The specific tree which Adam and Eve were told to not eat of was the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Genesis 2:9). They could eat of any other tree in the Garden - including the Tree of Life - but that's not what they did. The action they took in partaking of that particular tree demonstrated they chose to decide for themselves what was good and evil rather than trusting and believing God to make those decisions. They could choose Life or Knowledge (death). Fast forward to today and we can see same challenge facing us as Christians - will we choose to yield to God the Holy Spirit or choose our way which leads to death (Proverbs 14:12)?

One line of thinking is that "I need more of God to do what He wants me to do". We don't need "more" of God … the day we accept His work through Jesus and trust that what He says is good, we then receive the fullness of God in us. We cannot get more of God, but, what we can do is to give God more of us. The Amplified translation of the Fruit of Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22 says "the work which His [the Holy Spirit] presence within accomplishes" … what this means is that the more God has of us the more His character is manifest in us. The day we decide to trust what God did in Jesus we receive the residency of God and the Holy Spirit begins a process of renewal in us.

When we follow the Holy Spirit, we are actively "yielding" to Him and allowing Him to guide us in what we do. One facet of becoming a Christian (a Christ follower) and trusting what God says is good will result in certain "fruit" being produced in our lives. The evidence of that renewal is the Fruit of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control). We don't get the choice to accept only certain aspects of the Fruit and treat it like it's a bowl of oranges, apples, and bananas and pick and choose one or another. But, rather, the Fruit is more like a cluster of grapes … it's one fruit or by-product of having the renewing influence of the Holy Spirit. The question is yielding more and more and more to that influence of the presence in us of the Creator of the universe. When we hear and follow the voice of God, we will experience more of His character in us.

The process God uses is to knock on the door, be invited in, to reside with us to commune with us (Revelation 3:23). The whole act of communion with God comes in the continuation of inviting Him into all parts of our "house" - our life. It's a process and we grow in the Fruit as we grow in yielding more to Him and His work - the choice is always ours - will we choose His way or our way? This process also continues as we grow more in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit - which we'll talk about next time!