But 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
This week we are going to be studying the Fruit of the Spirit. When we are living in the Spirit, the fruit
that comes out of our lives will reflect the Holy Spirit, but when we are
living in our sinful nature, the fruit in our lives will reflect our sinful
nature. This week as we look at the
different attributes of the fruit of the Spirit, open yourself up to the Holy
Spirit and ask Him to produce good fruit in your life and to help you overcome
your opposing sinful nature.
Patience
Surely there can be no
greater example of patience than that of God’s patience with us, His
unrepentant, disobedient children. We
wander away and even turn our backs on Him sometimes but still He waits, with
open arms, ready for us when we come running back to Him. In his book A Gardner Looks at the Fruits
of the Spirit, W. Phillip Keller states that patience is the powerful capacity
of selfless love to suffer long under adversity. Being patient is very hard. Sometimes it means we have to let go of
expectations – expectations we place on people and expectations we place on
God. We have to let go of how and when
we believe things should happen and accept that God’s ways are not our ways. He knows what is best for us and we have to
trust in Him and His timing.
Kindness
Most of us have experienced someone being kind to us at one time or
another in our lifetime. We all want to
be treated with kindness, but when it comes to being nice to someone else; we
have a hard time with it. We are humans
and human nature is selfish and sometimes rude and uncaring. But kindness and mercy go hand in hand. You cannot be merciful without being kind,
and you cannot be kind without being merciful. Kindness begins with being caring,
tenderhearted, and compassionate towards each other. We should be looking for ways to show
kindness in our everyday lives. Don’t
hesitate when you see an opportunity because it may be gone if you put it
off. Kindness should begin at home with
the people we are closest to and who mean the most to us but often it is harder
to show kindness there. We often display
our most unkind behavior towards the people we love the most.
God calls us to be kind to everyone – including strangers and not just
friends and family. Sometimes people
will not be grateful to you for your display of kindness or reciprocate it but
the Bible tells us that our reward will be great: If
you do this, "your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most
High. For He is kind to [even] the unthankful and evil" (verse 35).
Goodness
Goodness seems closely
related to kindness, although kindness is usually directed towards an
individual and goodness may be an action towards an organization or involvement
in church, etc.
Goodness is the outward
evidence of Christ in our hearts. It is
good deeds motivated by righteousness and a desire to do the right thing simply
just for the sake of doing the right thing.
It is a principle which one lives by.
It is a standard of living of a life lived controlled by the Holy
Spirit. It is the selfless desire to be
a blessing to those around you for no reward to oneself but only for the
benefit of others. This is a virtue that
can only come as a result of the Holy Spirit inside us.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:16
