OK, so to start of: this topic has been on my heart for such a long time now and I am finally ready to dive in and do this. Right before our pastor moved away, he had a complete range of services dedicated to the topic ´the fruits of the holy spirit´ which is discussed in Galatians 5 and I absolutely LOVED it. Actually so much that I wanted to share it with as many people as I possibly could and it was my first blog post idea. Why isn´t it my first blogpost then you might ask yourself? Well, this is something that I really wanted to think through, wanted to do research for and not just make a summary of my church notes.
So, let’s start this thing and dive into this topic. First of all I want to state that instead of ‘they’ and ‘them’ (as in the Galatians) I am going to be talking about ‘we’ and ‘us’ as I want this to feel as a personal lesson for us, which it surely was meant for as well. The fruits of the holy spirit are described in Galatians 5:22-23 as follows:
"But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!"
To get good context, I would advise you to first read the whole passage or even better, the whole Galatians letter as you should never just rip a verse out of its context and I advise you to always read around it as well. Let’s start with the basics and get some context info about the Galatians letter in general. This piece was written by Paul and it is one of his sharpest letters. This can be noted by the lack of the usual thanksgiving in the beginning and the greeting at the end. Paul wrote this letter to warn the Galatians for the wrongful teachers that wanted to make the Galatians believe that in order to be a Christian they had to obey to the Mosaic law.
Skip ahead to chapter 5, here Paul states that Jesus has truly set us all free. Now we have to make sure that we do not get tied up in slavery. And with slavery he means the slavery to the law as well as to our sins. Paul states the following beau-ti-ful words in chapter 5 verses 13-14:
“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Then he goes on by giving us the ultimate tip on how to stay on the right track, namely our life should be led by the Holy Spirit. If we are truly led by the Holy Spirit we will also carry his fruits. Doesn’t it sound amazing to live a life where you are led by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? IT IS POSSIBLE PEOPLE! And of course, we will never get rid of our sinful nature as long as we are on this earth and Jesus has not come back. But, being led in your day-to-day life by these characteristics and knowing / praying that the Holy Spirit will work this in you is such a joyful thought that this does give you new hope every day!
I would now like to dive into each fruit specifically to make a connection to nowadays world and how we can implement this in our day-to-day life, but if you do have any other recommendations, please do leave them in the comment section below. This way we can help each other out here!(:
Love
What does the bible say about love? There are different types of love. You can love people that you are friends, someone you are dating or the person you are married to for example. You love these persons because there is somethings that attracts you. Whether it is the humor of your best friend or the kindness and lovingness of your husband, there is something in the other person that you like. This kind of love is called philia. There is of course nothing wrong with this kind of love, but there is another kind of love that we should strive for. You have probably heard of the word Agape. This is the kind of love that you give not only to people you like, or you have something in common with. It is also loving people that you do not really have anything in common with or who you will not receive back from. It even goes as far as loving your enemies. Isn’t this the kind of love we should strive for when we want to live like Jesus? He died for us on the cross, while we didn’t even want Him in our lives. This kind of love is SO precious and exactly the kind that we should pray for!
Joy
Joy is such an important part of our lives. It is being imprinted everywhere nowadays. In advertising you see how people find the greatest joy in buying an expensive car, going on a luxurious holiday or a wearing a certain brand of clothing. God really wants us to be joyful, but not in earthly causes. He wants us to be joyful in Him. In the old testimony, the word joy is written 60 times and the words be joyful 72 times. This says something about Gods intentions for us guys.
Peace
Doesn´t everyone wish for a little bit (or actually a lot) more peace in this world that can be so full of sadness, hatred and division. You know what would be a great place to start? Between you and God! Pray for your heart to be at peace with Him, cause this is something that we are naturally not after the fall of men. However, the bible also states that when we ask, it will be given for us. And God probably thought that it was so important for us to hear that, that he didn’t say it once, he didn’t say it twice, but he tripled up on this one! Read what it states in Matthew 7:7
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Isn’t that super special? This means that when we ask for peace with Him and when we knock on His door, He will open! What a good God that is.
Patience
This is something that I am currently really struggling with myself. I find it hard to be patient with Gods plan and what I am basically doing all the time is waiting for His plan to work out like my plan. And that is exactly why we all find it SO hard to be patient, because it is not our plan but His plan. But guys, this is worth waiting for! Then also think about this. Imagine someone close to you hurt you immensely. You get all your courage together and forgive them. After two days, they do the same hurtful thing and again, you forgive them. Multiply this by hundred or even a thousand times. Would you still forgive them the third and the fourth time? Maybe, but there is going to be a limit somewhere. Now turn this around. We sin towards God every single day of our life and maybe (hopefully) also ask for forgiveness every day. How amazing is it to know that every time you ask Him for forgiveness with a genuine heart you will receive what you ask for. He has SO much patience with us. Let strive to be like Him!
Kindness
OK so it´s about to get interesting up in here. Did you know that in Greek language the word ´chrestos´ stood for kindness and the word ´christos´ stood for the followers of Christ. Is this a coincidence? I think not! Back in the days, these words were basically interchangeable which means they both meant kindness and followers of Christ. This suggests that these two characteristics cannot be seen as separate. If you are a follower of Christ, kindness is something that will grow on you along the way.
Goodness
So this one cannot be separated for the previous fruit namely kindness. What is important to know is that the base of this fruit (just as with all the other ones) is with God. He is goodness. He doesn’t have a spot of darkness in Him and all His decision and everything he does in your life is driven by His goodness and His love for you. When receiving this characteristic, this is something that we want to do for others as well. And with others I do not mean your spouse, parents, best friends etc. (well, them as well of course) but especially your former enemies. Treat them with all respect out of the (received) goodness of your heart.
Faithfulness
I think that everyone can agree with me when I say that faithfulness is a VERY important aspect in a marriage. When you marry someone you expect to support each other through thick and thin and to always have each other’s back, love one another and care for the other person. Isn’t is exactly the same with God? The only difference with Him is that we never ever have to doubt if He is willing to do those things for us. He is always ready to support us, have our back, love us and care for us. The only thing we have to do is come to Him and tell Him that we want this relationship with Him. Isn’t that amazing?
Gentleness
Being gentle is so hard in this world full of people wanting to out-do each other. Maybe you know the saying ‘fortune favours the bold’, which does seem so true in nowadays world – the people who scream the loudest, get the most attention. Even though it might seem logical that we’d need to do this for His attention, Jesus says that he want his followers to be gentle. Gentleness might not be normal in this world but it makes you that more unique when you ARE gentle!
Self-control
This must be one of the hardest for everyone, as self-control can literally apply to anything. I know I have a hard time controlling myself when I am irritated by someone or something to not get all negative Nancy and moaning / complaining about the situation. I have to pray every single morning to stop this from happening. But then again, just like I stated at the end of patience, when you pray for this, He will help you achieve it!
To close this off, I want to make sure that you know it is not very likely that one night you will pray for this and wake up with all these perfect characteristics. Just like our pastor told us, fruit starts of small. Sometimes even with a little seed. This little seed grows and evolves into a beautiful fruit BUT, it does take a lot of time and effort to make sure it ends up as a good quality fruit. The same goes for living life like this. You can pray and depend on God and the Holy Spirit for helping you in this process, but it is always going to be a process! And that’s OK. Let’s all pray for each other to receive these beautiful characteristics and make the world a better place in His name!
Love,
Marina
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