Self Control

It’s great that with this fruit comes the ability to remove self not just control it. It is the demonstration of all of the fruit listed in the previous ten posts. Another description might be that it is the ability to recognize when we are stepping away from The Lord and making the correction by quickly turning back to Him.

Faithfulness

Full of faith, trusting God with all that we are and all that we have. Knowing that in the big picture, no matter what today may look like, somewhere down the road we will understand and appreciate all that we experienced today.

Gentleness

Mildness might be another way of saying gentleness. This sometimes gets confused with avoidance or being the kind of person that stays away from difficulty. That’s not what this fruit is about. The confidence that comes from the Spirit within us allows us to confront the things that need to be addressed but we are able to do that with gentleness, being considerate of others.

Goodness

I like to think the explanation of this fruit is like the foods we say are full of goodness, in other words, of great benefit. People filled with the Spirit and thus the fruit of goodness, are beneficial to those around them.

Kindness

We demonstrate kindness when we put aside the things that are important to us at the moment and give our focus to what is important to another.

Patience

Patience is a huge indicator of God’s Spirit working in us. I can’t think of an instance when impatience isn’t self-centered. We want things our way; on our schedule and when it doesn’t go that way we get mad about it and make others feel inferior to us by losing our patience.

Peace

“a: a state of tranquility b: a state of security or order c: freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions d: harmony in personal relations.” Sounds like The Spirit to me!

Joy

Being filled with Joy in the face of difficulty is an incredible testimony to the world. The ability to completely put our trust in God when things aren’t looking good is possible through God’s Spirit in us. Everyone finds happiness when life is going well, when we think we know what tomorrow brings and when we feel like we’re in control. But if that is the source of our happiness it will be as fading as our circumstances. The ability to know God’s perspective on whatever is going on with us brings true joy.

Love

Love is the root of all of the fruit of the Spirit. Without true love the other fruit are empty and unattainable. True love begins and ends with God’s perfect love for us. It’s only out of the abundance of His love for us that we are able to completely trust Him, allowing the Spirit to work through us. When we truly know this love and the trust that comes from it we are able to operate selflessly, caring more for The Lord and others than we do ourselves. If you look at the opposites of the fruit: woe, worry, impatience etc. you find selfish-ness at their core, which demonstrates a lack of trust. Those things are us focusing on us.

Fruit

Scripture is extremely clear on what we will see in those (and others will see in us) that are operating by God’s Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. There are reasons we’re given this description and it’s meant for us to use all the time. The first reason is for us to examine ourselves to see that this list describes us and is a true reflection of who we are and the second reason is to observe the people and situations around us and use this picture to know if God is in them.