Fruit of the Spirit / Mrs Linda Vaprezsan

 

Mrs. Linda Vaprezsan

Pastor's Wife

Metro Baptist Church

Belleville, MI

 

 

FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT

The Fruit of God’s Character

I long to prosper in your fruit

More than the wealth of the land.

What the world offers, matters not,

It’s all like crumbling sand

It has no substance for sustaining life

Of eternal value, I mean

Its only use is for the temporal

In fulfilling worldly dreams

But one day soon it will all be gone 

As if it had never been

And when we’re standing with it all,

What in us will be seen?

For worldly wealth has no real value.

Nor character to strive for.

For we are nothing when all is revealed

If we lack the fruit of the Lord

I’d rather have the qualities of God.

The fruit of His Spirit inside,

For it’s His character that will remain

When we enter eternal life.

By M.S. Lowndes

Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance:  against such there is no law.”

As I was preparing this devotional, I thought about all of these attributes.  Without quickly counting, how many fruit are there of the Spirit?  Take a guess and then count to see if you got it right.  If you counted nine you are not exactly right.  

Did you realize that there is only ONE fruit of the Spirit?  I know you are thinking just one?  In Greek the word for “fruit” is “karpos” and it is in the singular.  So therefore if you read this verse thinking of it as singular, it would read that all of these attributes listed are one group that go together as a unit.  

We can’t pick or choose, rather, the fruit of the Spirit is one nine fold “fruit” that characterizes all who truly walk in the Holy Spirit.  Collectively, these are the fruits that all Christians should be producing in their new lives with Jesus Christ.

After I had prepared this part of the devotional for our Mother/Daughter/Friend evening, a lady who seen our advertisement for the event, asked if we could put an “S” on the poster?  I guess she felt it was incorrect.  Our secretary asked her if she had read the scripture and that the scripture is singular.  I know myself that I have caught myself saying Fruits of the Spirit.

Notice that the fruit of the Spirit is just that, of the Spirit.  It is not your fruit, but the fruit of the Spirit of God.  This is because God is love and He lives in us.  This means that it is the work of God the Holy Spirit in you to bear this fruit.  Of course, you cooperate with God in bearing this fruit and you absolutely need to seek to develop it, but in Philippians 2:13 it says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

We know that it is God’s good pleasure that you love and bear the fruit of love.

If it is all one fruit, then all the nine things listed in the verses are already ours in the Spirit of God.  In other words, all nine things are really one thing that you have available to you because the Holy Spirit indwells in you.  

If you love, then will you not have joy?  If you love, will you not also have peace?  If you love, will you not also be gentle or longsuffering, be meek and have self-control (temperance)?  It could easily be said that love is the tree that bears the fruit of joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.  If you have the love of God in your heart because you have trusted Christ as your Savior then all the other attributes are yours too.  You just need to develop them.

Let’s take a look at each fruit along with their opposites.

1. Love (What a warm feeling.)  The opposite of that is hate.  (That should make us feel dirty and ugly on the inside.)

2. Joy (isn’t that a great feeling?) The opposite of that is fear.  (That sure isn’t a great feeling.)

3. Peace (I love the sound of that.)  The opposite of that is confusion.  (None of us like confusion in our lives.)

4. Longsuffering (This one is hard because it means patience.)  The opposite of that is anger.  (Anger separates us from the Lord, how sad is that?)

5. Goodness (This should make us smile.)  The opposite of that is being insensitive to others. (And that should make us sad.)

6. Gentleness (It is wonderful when we see someone being gentle.)  The opposite of that is demanding.  (When someone is demanding it makes us want to stay far away from that person.)

7. Faith (This helps others trust us.)  The opposite of that is hypocrisy.  (We say one thing and do another.  How could anyone have faith in us?)

8. Meekness (Quiet) The opposite of that is loud and annoying. (People don’t like to be around that type of person.)

9. Temperance (having self-control, making sure we don’t let ourselves just do whatever we want to.) The opposite of that is egotism.  (This is when we do whatever we want no matter who we hurt along the way.)

When you examine yourself you might notice that some of the fruit (speaking of individual aspects of love here) are not all that well developed.  You might be kind and good, but need to work on your patience.  You might have great joy and peace but need work on self-control or temperance and gentleness.  None of us are perfect, and we all have areas of improvement.  But, all Christians have the Spirit of God therefore; they have the fruit of the Spirit of God in them.  It is there, if only in developing form, it is there.

The most important thing is that the fruit of the Spirit of God is in you because, if you are born again, you have been bought with a price.  You have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, God in flesh, who died on the cross for your sins.  It is only because of what Jesus did that you can ever hope to be good, or gentle, or kind, or patient, or loving, or anything.  You cannot truly live these things without the Spirit of God in you.

It is by faith that you walk before God.  It is by faith that you seek the Lord and seek to manifest the love of His Spirit in you.  It is important because the unbelievers need to see those graces working in you.  They are an evidence of your conversion and a testimony of God’s indwelling.

Ask yourself, if you are loving, or trying to show love not only to God but also to people.  Then, go back and count the fruit again.  When you get to each one, stop and ask the Lord to develop that in your heart.  By working on each “fruit” listed, can we develop the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT in our lives.