The Fruit of the Spirit
I like fruit! It is a natural sweetness that I like even though I do not eat desserts. Fruit is a good end to a meal. Fruit is a good beginning to a day. Fruit is a good snack during the day. I have read that we should try to have 5 to 8 servings of fruit per day. Even though I like fruit, I have a problem with that because, even though fruit is one of my favorites, I like so many other things as well that there is not enough time in a day to get in that many helpings of fruit! Oh, well, I’ll just keep eating fruit in my way.
The Christian life should also be filled with fruit. Galatians 5:22-23 lists traits under the heading “fruit of the Spirit”. I should desire to have these traits in my life. They make life so much sweeter.
A fruit is a food that carries its seed inside itself. That is the accepted definition of fruit. However, it is also true that we have come to regard some foods that carry their seed on the inside as vegetables, namely tomatoes and okra, as well as others. But, for our purposes, we will go with this definition.
The text before us clearly identifies “the fruit of the Spirit” having its origin with the Spirit. This “fruit” is produced by the Spirit whose residence is with the one possessing Him. We know from such passages as Acts 2:38; II Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30 that Scripture claims the Spirit lives with the one who has been immersed into Jesus having had his sins washed away in that act.
We know further that this is the culmination of the process of accepting the teaching of the word of God that is called “the seed” (I Peter 1:23). Once that seed is planted in the hearts of good and honest people it leads them to this act through which they find salvation and receive the Spirit from whom comes the fruit.
As in the physical realm of agriculture, so in the realm of the Spirit, the fruit is the obvious display of the seed. Every seed reveals itself when it ripens into the fruit that it naturally bears. Every Christian will reveal the presence of the Spirit in their lives. This fruit is not only good for the spiritual life, it is necessary. This fruit is evidence of the Spirit for it is Spirit-generated. “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25). That does not mean that only Christians possess any of these traits. There are many “good” people in the world who exhibit many of these.
However, these traits are evidence that there is good in the world in spite of the damage the devil has done to it. These traits exist in the world because of the Spirit. Without God, none of these things would be in evidence anywhere.
The job of a Christian is to magnify these traits to the world. It is our job to magnify them in the workplace, the schools, the ball fields, and in our personal relationships. We cannot claim to be Christians without evidencing such through a manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
It is important to notice that the word is “fruit” not “fruits”. Fruits is plural but “fruit” can also be plural. However, in this text the intention is to think of the list as a single group. One cannot go through the list as though walking through the fruit section in the grocery store and deciding which ones to purchase and which ones to avoid. The Spirit produces each one of these individual characteristics and they must be taken as a whole; Christians exhibit the whole group.
— Mike Johnson
