THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”

Galatians 5:22-23

“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!”

As I read and meditate on these two passages written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit what seems clearer to me is the definition of what real love, God’s Love, is according to the Word of God.

The fruit of the Spirit, the reality of life in the Spirit as He lives out the Life of Jesus Christ in a believer is defined as a life of God’s love demonstrated through the way a believer lives. What is a reality within a person will be demonstrated through that individual for all to see. Jesus stated that, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

Love is patient and kind, neither jealous, boastful proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way; it chooses God’s way. Love is not irritable and keeps no record of wrongs done to it. Love proves in the heart of a believer that the wrongs it has done are infinitely greater than those done to it by others and we understand the mercy, grace, and forgiveness God has shown. Love gives no room to injustice but loves the truth at all costs. Love never gives up for God has not and never will give up on one who has put their trust in the Lord Jesus. Love never loses faith because its faith is grounded in the Person of Jesus Christ, not in circumstances or feelings. Love is ever hopeful because God’s promises can never fail and His timing is perfect. Love endures because it knows that He who has begun a good work in the believer’s life WILL bring it to completion by the Day of Christ.

One could almost say that the fruit of the Spirit in the life of the follower of Jesus is due to the fact that the life of the branch is nothing less than the Life of the Vine flowing through it. The Life of God, the resurrection power, authority, and Life of Jesus Christ by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit WILL produce a life that looks like the Vine. The fruit will look like Jesus looked; will live as Jesus lived in His Incarnation. The fruit of the Life of Jesus Christ being lived in and through a Christian will be that of God’s Love. That Love is joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle (meekness in strength/power under control) and self-controlled due to the One enabling such control.

2 Peter 1:3-9

“By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know Him, the one who called us to Himself by means of His marvelous glory and excellence. And because of His glory and excellence, He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human lusts and passions.

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way become shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins.”

The Apostle Peter echoes what the Apostle Paul writes about the fruit of the Holy Spirit stating that we have received the Life and Love of God. It is working in us and we are to keep pressing into all God has for us to live out. Letting the Promises of God be implemented in us by the Holy Spirit, we are to grow and be changed into His likeness. The Holy Spirit intends to reproduce in us the Love of Jesus, His obedience, His faith, His very Life, and character.  We are to never forget that who we are now is the singular result of what God has done for us and is doing in us by Christ Jesus.

Love is meant to grow more and more. We “add to faith moral excellence, knowledge of God, self-control, patient endurance, brotherly affection and love” by walking in the Spirit by the power of His life being lived out within us. Our love and our fruitfulness in Christ at this moment are not yet everything God intends to manifest in and through us. We will grow as we yield all we are to all He is. God, Himself, enables that yielding.

Trust His love for you. Nothing can separate you from the joyful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled Love of God that has ever “found purest gold in mirey clay, turning sinners into saints.” Feed on God’s Word, His promises that are all “YES!” in Christ Jesus, lest you become short-sighted or even forget that He has forgiven you. Let His Love for you be your confidence as He reproduces His Love in you.