“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is
no law.” – Galatians 5:22-23 ESV
Galatians
5:22-23 simply means that the fruit of the Spirit is a combination of love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
There may be worldly laws against these things, but there aren’t any godly laws
against such things. In other words, the fruit of the Spirit is basically a law
that we have to follow, if we are followers of Jesus Christ. This is because He
declares:
I am the true vine, and my Father
takes care of the vineyard. He removes every one of my branches that doesn’t
produce fruit. He also prunes every branch that does produce fruit to make it
produce more fruit.
You are already clean because of
what I have told you. Live in me, and I will live in you. A branch cannot
produce any fruit by itself. It has to stay attached to the vine. In the same
way, you cannot produce fruit unless you live in me.
I am the vine. You are the
branches. Those who live in me while I live in them will produce a lot of
fruit. But you can’t produce anything without me. Whoever doesn’t live in me is
thrown away like a branch and dries up. Branches like this are gathered, thrown
into a fire, and burned… You give glory to my Father when you produce a lot of
fruit and therefore show that you are my disciples. (John
15:1-6,8)
The characteristic
virtues of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in biblical terms:
Love:
If we are devoted in God, then we have to love others as
well. This is because 1
John 4:7-21 and Romans
13:8-10 states:
Dear friends, let us love one
another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and
knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This
is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the
world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but
that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear
friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has
ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in
him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify
that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone
acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
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 them. This is how love is made complete among us so
that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like
Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear
has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever
claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister [in Christ] is a liar. For
whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot
love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who
loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1
John 4:7-21)
Let no debt remain outstanding,
except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has
fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You
shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever
other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your
neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the
fulfillment of the law. (Romans
13:8-10)
Thus, Jesus gave these two greatest commandments: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The
second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment
greater than these.” (Mark
12:30-31)
Joy:
If there is no joy in our lives, then our lives are going to
be uninteresting and tiresome. However, God provided eternal life for us by
sending His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ as an image of Himself (Colossians
1:15; John 1:14) into the world to crucify on the Cross as an atonement of
our sins. (Colossians
2:13-15) “For the wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans
6:23) Thus, if we join Romans
15:13, John
17:3, and Romans
14:17 together, then it goes likes:
May the God of hope fill you with
all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may
abound in hope. And this is eternal life, that they know… the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you [God] have sent. For the kingdom of God is not a
matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the
Holy Spirit.
Peace:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace...” – Colossians
3:16
We should let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. This
is because by the peace, the Lord gives us strength and He blesses us (Psalm
29:11), for we are His children (1
John 3:1) – “Blessed are the
peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew
5:9)
If we do not have the peace of Christ in our lives, then we
are constantly at war with everything else even within ourselves, for “we know that we are children of God, and
that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” (1
John 5:19) Also, obeying God becomes burden to us. However, He gave us the
peace of God, which is different from the world’s. We know this, because we
know that we have received the Holy Spirit from Him as our
guidance/advocate/friend to help us to walk with God, who is our heavenly
Father (Ephesians
4:6):
If you love me, keep my commands.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you
and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him,
because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with
you and will be in you. The Advocate,
the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all
things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with
you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let
your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John
14:15-17,26-27)
The peace of God, which surpasses
all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. For
the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness
and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Patience and
Gentleness:
We ought to have patience and gentleness around everyone, for
“the Lord's servant must not be
quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,
correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance
leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and
escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his
will.” (2
Timothy 2:24-26) This is because the Lord’s servant needs to be the same as
His characteristic traits, for “whoever
claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.” Hence, patience and
gentleness are huge parts that need to be within us, if we are followers of
Jesus Christ. For according to the characteristics of God, patience and
gentleness are the huge parts. This is because “the LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in
love.” (Psalm
145:8) To be specific, if He is not patient and gentle at all, He would not
had to send His only beloved Son to the cross as an atonement of our sins; for
He knows that we are going to sin again. This means that we would already perish
from the earth. “For if we go on sinning
deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer
remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury
of fire that will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews
10:26-27) Furthermore, we know that Jesus has lots of patience and
gentleness, for He says:
Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is
light. (Matthew
11:28-30)
Thus, He gives us spiritual strength to endure, for Isaiah
40:30-31 states:
Even youths shall faint and be
weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall
renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall
run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
Kindness and
goodness:
As followers of Jesus Christ, kindness and goodness are necessary
to have. “For we are God’s handiwork,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us
to do.” (Ephesians
2:10) This is because Colossians
3:12 declares:
Therefore, as God’s chosen people,
holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility,
gentleness and patience.
Moreover, we could influence others spiritually by being and
showing goodness. This is because Matthew
5:14-16 states:
You are the light of the
world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a
lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives
light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let
your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and
glorify your Father in heaven.
Faithfulness:
If we have faithfulness to the Lord, we should have the same
kind of faithfulness to others as well. This is because Proverbs
28:20 says, “A faithful person will
be richly blessed…”
Moreover, Luke
16:10-12 states:
If you are faithful in little
things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little
things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities. And if you are
untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of
heaven? And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you
be trusted with things of your own?
The “true riches,”
that is stated in Luke 16:11 come from God—since He is the truth (John
14:6)
Seek the Kingdom of God above all
else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. And this
same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious
riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus. (Matthew
6:33, Philippians 4:19)
Thus, Jesus gives us the parable, which faithfulness is related
to the kingdom of heaven in Matthew
25:14-30:
… God’s kingdom will also be like a
man leaving home to travel to another place for a visit. Before he left, he
talked with his servants. He told his servants to take care of his things while
he was gone. He decided how much each servant would be able to care for. The
man gave one servant five bags of money. He gave another servant two bags. And
he gave a third servant one bag. Then he left. The servant who got five bags
went quickly to invest the money. Those five bags of money earned five more. It
was the same with the servant who had two bags. That servant invested the money
and earned two more. But the servant who got one bag of money went away and dug
a hole in the ground. Then he hid his master’s money in the hole.
After a long time the master came
home. He asked the servants what they did with his money. The servant who got
five bags brought that amount and five more bags of money to the master. The
servant said, ‘Master, you trusted me to care for five bags of money. So I used
them to earn five more.’
The master answered, ‘You did
right. You are a good servant who can be trusted. You did well with that small
amount of money. So I will let you care for much greater things. Come and share
my happiness with me.’
Then the servant who got two bags
of money came to the master. The servant said, ‘Master, you gave me two bags of
money to care for. So I used your two bags to earn two more.’
The master answered, ‘You did
right. You are a good servant who can be trusted. You did well with a small
amount of money. So I will let you care for much greater things. Come and share
my happiness with me.’
Then the servant who got one bag of
money came to the master. The servant said, ‘Master, I knew you were a very hard
man. You harvest what you did not plant. You gather crops where you did not put
any seed. So I was afraid. I went and hid your money in the ground. Here is the
one bag of money you gave me.’
The master answered, ‘You are a bad
and lazy servant! You say you knew that I harvest what I did not plant and that
I gather crops where I did not put any seed. So you should have put my money in
the bank. Then, when I came home, I would get my money back. And I would also
get the interest that my money earned.’
So the master told his other
servants, ‘Take the one bag of money from that servant and give it to the
servant who has ten bags. Everyone who uses what they have will get more. They
will have much more than they need. But people who do not use what they have
will have everything taken away from them.’ Then the master said, ‘Throw that
useless servant outside into the darkness, where people will cry and grind
their teeth with pain.’
Self-control:
We know that self-control is part of being holiness and
godliness. This is because 1
Peter 1:13-17 and 2
Peter 1:3-11 affirm:
Prepare your minds for action and
exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will
come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as
God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to
satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be
holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the
Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”
And remember that the heavenly
Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according
to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here [on
the earth] as “temporary residents.” (1
Peter 1:13-17)
His [Christ’s] divine power has
given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who
called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very
great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil
desires.
For this very reason, make every
effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge,
self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance,
godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For
if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from
being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But
whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have
been cleansed from their past sins.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters,
make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things,
you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal
kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2
Peter 1:3-11)
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