What is the Fruit of the Holy Spirit? - Sunday

What is the Fruit of the Holy Spirit?

WHAT IS THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT?

You may have heard the phrase “fruit of the Holy Spirit” brought up during a message or a small group. But as a new believer, what in the world does that mean? Haha

So in Galatians 5:22-23, Paul says that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

What he means by that is that as we become more holy, more Christ-like in our nature every day then our output should be all 9 characteristics of the fruit of the spirit - people should know we are believers by the “fruit” that our lives produce.

By the love we have for others, the joy we can’t contain, the peace in the midst of chaos, our patience with frustrating people and situations, our kindness towards others, our goodness - if we’re good people, how faithful we are in relationships, how gentle we are, and how we control our actions towards what we know is right and what we actually want to do sometimes.

It’s within those characteristics that we should be growing constantly. So many Christians steer away from self-improvement because of the phrase “I must die to self”. Yes this is true but it also means we are going from glory to glory, becoming more like Jesus and if we don’t spend time improving ourselves to be like him, we won’t be. Just thinking about it isn’t gonna cut it.

When Michelangelo finished his statue of David, people were blown away by the beauty of it. They couldn’t comprehend how a man made something so BEAUTIFUL out of a large rock. It was mind blowing to them. And the story goes that when he was asked how he did it, he responded with,

“It was easy. I just chipped away the stone that didn’t look like David.”

I think God says that about us a lot of the time when we get caught up doing things that don’t honor Him or say things we shouldn’t or believe things about ourselves that are lies. We get put through the refining process where God does a deep work on our hearts even when it sucks. He says I’m just chipping away the stone that doesn’t look like David, that doesn’t look like Sarah, that doesn’t look like Ashley. I’m just chipping away the stone so that you can see who I made you to be. To live out your destiny the best way possible.

What if the searching to please others ended and you looked into who you truly are. Into the person that God made you to be. Flawless in His eyes. A perfect image representing a piece of Him. When you realize that, your entire world will become a beautiful masterpiece.

I would even go so far to say that I don’t think you can fully walk out in all aspects of the fruit of the spirit until you become confident in who you are and who God has called you to be. But as you become more and more like Christ, you won’t be able to contain what he has already placed inside of you. It’s then that your fruit will FLOURISH. And you’ll be more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, self-controlled, faithful, and gentle.

So look in the mirror this week. Does your life display the fruit of the Holy Spirit? Which areas do you need to work in? Spend some time thinking about it. Peace.

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