Fruit of the Spirit – Visible Growth in Jesus Christ
“Fruit of the Spirit” is a biblical term that sums up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life. Using the King James Version of Galatians 5:22-23, these attributes are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. We learn from scripture that these are not individual “fruits” from which we pick and choose. Rather, the fruit of the Spirit is one ninefold “fruit” that characterizes all who truly walk in the Holy Spirit. Collectively, these are the fruits that all Christians should be producing in their new lives with Jesus Christ.
Fruit of the Spirit – The Nine Biblical Attributes
The fruit of the Spirit is a physical manifestation of a Christian’s transformed life. In order to mature as believers, we should study and understand the attributes of the ninefold fruit:
Love – “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Through Jesus Christ, our greatest goal is to do all things in love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
Joy – “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
Peace – “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).
Longsuffering (patience) — We are “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness” (Colossians 1:11). “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).
Gentleness (kindness) — We should live “in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left” (2 Corinthians 6:6-7).
Goodness – “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power” (2 Thessalonians 1:11). “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9).
Faith (faithfulness) – “O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth” (Isaiah 25:1). “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16-17).
Meekness – “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” (Ephesians 4:2).
Temperance (self-control) – “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
Fruit of the Spirit – A Devotional for All Christians
The fruit of the Spirit is a wonderful study for Christians at any level of spiritual maturity. We hope this website provides a thought-provoking devotional and a springboard for growth.
Grow More Now!
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
– We have all
sinned
and deserve God’s judgment.
God
, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him.
Jesus
, the creator and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He
died
for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was
buried
, and
rose from the dead
according to the
Bible
. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your
Savior
, declaring, “
Jesus is Lord
,” you will be saved from
judgment
and spend eternity with God in heaven.
What is your response?
Yes, today I am deciding to follow JesusYes, I am already a follower of JesusI still have questions
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As you will see in the Scripture verse I will give you in this article – there is one very special incredible verse that will tell you that God the Father wants to transmit and impart 9 specific fruits of the Holy Spirit up into our personalities.
God wants all of us to enter into a true sanctification process with Him so that He can begin the process of molding, shaping, and transforming us into the express image of His Son Jesus Christ. He wants to make us into a better and more holy people. He wants to transform us by the renewing of our minds. He wants to put right thinking into our thought process.
In the “Sanctification,” I gave you the specific verses from Scripture that showed you that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that this sanctification process is done with you in this life. However, you will not be a passive robot in all of this. You have to be willing to work in cooperation with the Holy Spirit once He begins to start this sanctification process within you.
Your job will be to get into the Word to find out exactly what it is God is going to want to change about you. You will need to find out exactly what godly qualities God will want you to try and “put on” into your personality, and what qualities He will want you to try and “put away.”
This article will be the first of a series of articles giving you all of the appropriate Scripture verses showing you exactly which qualities and attributes God will want to get worked into your personality, and which qualities He will want to pull out of you. And there is no better place to start this series of articles than with the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit.
If you want to start off by keying on some of the more positive, godly qualities that God would really like to get worked into your personality – really study and meditate on these 9 specific qualities.
When God the Father purposely isolates and spells out 9 specific qualities that will be coming direct from His Holy Spirit – then He is really letting you know the extreme importance of these 9 specific fruits.
These 9 fruits are major fruits and qualities that are coming direct from God Himself – and every Christian should do the best they can to work with the Holy Spirit in getting all 9 of these fruits worked into their personality.
I will first start off by highlighting each of these 9 specific fruits so that you can have all 9 of them isolated right at the top of this article. I will then give you the Scripture verse where these 9 fruits are coming from, and then do a brief commentary on each one of these fruits so you can fully understand what each one of these fruits are all about, and how they can dramatically change the quality of your life and state of well-being if you are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to start to work all 9 of these fruits into your personality.
Here are the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit listed one right after the other in a bolded, numbered format:
- Love
- Joy
- Peace
- Longsuffering
- Kindness
- Goodness
- Faithfulness
- Gentleness
- Self-control
Now here is the specific verse from Scripture where these 9 fruits are being given to us by the Lord:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Galatians 5:22)
Before I get into the appropriate commentary on each of these nine fruits, note the following:
- The word “Spirit” is with a capital “S” – which means these 9 fruits are coming directly from the Holy Spirit, not from ourselves.
- What this means is that God’s love, God’s peace, God’s joy, and God’s goodness can start to be transmitted up into our personality. These are His divine attributes and personality qualities that will start to move into the core of our personality.
- Think about the ramifications of this – that God the Father Himself is allowing us to share in a part of His divine nature by allowing His Holy Spirit to transmit and impart these nine divine qualities right up into our soul and personality!
This is why God the Father is specifically telling us in this verse that these 9 fruits are coming directly from His Holy Spirit – so that we can all fully appreciate the magnitude of such an experience.
Jesus has already told us that He is the vine and we are the branches. The branches draw their life from the vine, not vice versa. Just as the branch draws its life from the vine, so too must we draw our life directly from Jesus. Jesus will release His divine life directly into us through the Holy Spirit in the exact same way that the vine will release the life of the tree into the branches.
In one short, but incredible powerful Scripture verse, God the Father is giving all of us an incredible revelation on what can go on behind the scenes in the spiritual realm for those who are willing to work with Him in this sanctification process.
Now I will go on to describe what each one of these nine fruits are all about and give you definitions from some of the different Bible Dictionaries and Commentaries, thereby making it easier for you to work with the Holy Spirit once He starts to move in on you to try and impart some of these divine qualities and attributes into the core of your personality.
Conclusion
All of the above definitions on each one of the 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit give you a perfect description of what each one of them are all about, and why God the Father really wants to work each one of these 9 fruits into our personalities.
As you can see when reviewing each one of them, they are all very powerful – and they not only have the ability to help change, transform, and sanctify you – but they also have the ability to touch all of those around you.
Nothing will draw nonbelievers and believers alike to the Lord than a truly sanctified saint in the Lord who is walking and operating in all 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit.
If you are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to work and transmit all 9 of these fruits up into your personality to some appreciable degree in this life – you will then become a light that will literally radiate the presence of God Himself through your soul and personality.
You have no idea how many people you will be able to save, touch, witness to, and help disciple if you have these fruits operating through you. These fruits will give you a credibility with God and with other people that no degree or title can give you in this life.
This sanctification process is the ultimate, highest aim and goal with God for our lives.
For those of you who are not afraid to let God begin this deeper sanctifying work in your life – keep these 9 fruits of the Holy Spirit directly in front of you.
And then work very closely with the Holy Spirit once He starts to manifest these fruits up into your personality.
These fruits will be coming directly from Him. They will be His love, His goodness, His joy, and His peace that will start to flow into you. But you will still have to do your part in all of this. Once these divine attributes start to be released into your personality by the Holy Spirit – your job will then be to start to walk and operate in them.
If the Holy Spirit starts to release His quality of love into your personality, but you start refusing to walk and operate in that love in your words and actions to others – then He will start to pull it back from you after a reasonable length of time.
If He starts to manifest His quality of self-control in you in an effort to try and take out some of the negative qualities that He will not want operating in your personality, and you refuse to rely on that self-control, and you override it and continue to operate in those negative qualities – then again, He will pull it back from you until you are ready to work in cooperation with Him.
This sanctification process is a two way street.
God is more than willing and anxious to do His part – but you will have to be willing to do your part. And your part will be to learn what changes God will want to make with you – and then start to live, walk, and operate in those specific changes once the Holy Spirit starts this supernatural, sanctification process within you.
This part God cannot do for you.
Jesus gave Peter the power and ability to be able to walk on water. But there was one thing Peter had to do before that supernatural power was released to him. He had to get out of the boat and start walking straight forward on that power.
It was only when he got out of the boat and started walking straight forward did the supernatural power of God manifest that allowed him to literally walk on water!
It’s the exact same way in this sanctification realm with the Lord. God, through the Holy Spirit, will give you the supernatural power to change, transform, and sanctify you – but you will have to be like Peter and be willing to live and walk in that supernatural power before it can really start to work to change and sanctify you.
Jesus is coming back for a Bride that will be without spot or blemish. He is calling His Church to clean up their act and allow His Holy Spirit to begin this deeper sanctifying work in their lives. However, the choice is up to each individual believer. Sanctification is not something that can be forced upon anyone. God really respects everyone’s free will and He will never force His will or His ways on anyone.
To those of you who will decide to enter into this sanctification process with the Lord – realize that all of this will not occur overnight. The Holy Spirit will set the pace and timetable that He will want to work with you on. You can perfectly trust Him to handle each of the areas that He will want to get into.
Though some of this may be a bit painful at times, since none of us likes to admit that we have anything that needs to be changed, let the Holy Spirit take you as far as He will want to go with you in this realm – and I guarantee you that your life and your state of well-being will all be changed for the better – much better!
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“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.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
The Greek word translated “fruit” refers to the natural product of a living thing. Paul used “fruit” to help us understand the product of the Holy Spirit, who lives inside every believer. The fruit of the Spirit is produced by the Spirit, not by the Christian. The Greek word is singular, showing that “fruit” is a unified whole, not independent characteristics. As we grow, all the characteristics of Christ will be manifested in our lives.
Yet, like physical fruit needs time to grow, the fruit of the Spirit will not ripen in our lives overnight. Like a successful gardener must battle against weeds to enjoy the sweet fruit they desire, we must constantly work to rid our lives of the “weeds” of our old sin natures that want to choke out the work of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit gives us the power we need to reject those old sinful desires. We can say “no” to sin and accept the “way out” God faithfully provides (1 Corinthians 10:13) by following the Holy Spirit’s leading.
As we give the Spirit more control of our lives, He begins to do in and through us what only He can do – to shape us and grow us to look like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:17-18).
Since God’s goal for all His children is for us to be like Jesus (Romans 8:29), the Holy Spirit constantly works to rid our lives of the “acts of the sinful nature” (Gal 5:19) and display His fruit instead. Therefore, the presence of the “fruit of the Spirit” is evidence that our character is becoming more like Christ’s.
Paul uses 9 characteristics to describe the fruit of the Spirit in the book of Galatians.
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