“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” – Galatians 5:22-23 (KJV).
The fruit of the spirit is Christian character. The Christian character is the authentic evidence of true discipleship. It is the distinctive sign of Christlikeness. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” John 13:35(KJV). While the gifts of the spirit are imparted into the believer as a gift by the Holy Spirit, the fruits are developed by the believer through study and meditation of the word of God by the help of the Holy Spirit as the believer commits to renewing the mind, forming the Christian values and building character over time.
Receiving the gifts of the spirit is an event, but the growing and developing of character or fruit of the spirit is a life time process of conforming to Christ. Fruit bearing results in spiritual growth and maturity. As the believer yields to the dealings of the indwelling Holy Spirit, he bears the fruit in the recreated human spirit.
Every believer indwelled by the Holy Spirit have the capacity to bear the fruit of the spirit as they commit to the study, meditation and practicing of the word. Any believer who hears the word and fails to put it into practice or to obey the word will not enjoy the benefit of character formation or fruit bearing. It is the word put into practice that forms the Christian character. Apostle James highlights this point by admonishing Christians to be doers of the word and not hearers only, stating that anyone who hears the word but fails to practice it is deceiving himself since evading commitment to the word result in evading character development. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deeds” James 1:22 (KJV). The primary blessing here is the blessing of life transformation which is character development. Apostle Paul declared that the gospel could not profit some because they failed to put it into practice. “For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it” Hebrew 4:2(KJV).
Notice that the reference is the fruit of the spirit. It is just one fruit – Christ character – with so many ingredients in it. This fruit manifests as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance – this is the Christ character evident in the life of believers as they yield to the transforming power of the word and the spirit.
PRAYER: Lord, let the fruit of the spirit be evident in my life in Jesus name.
Rev. Vincent Diolu