Growth Weekly
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the self with its passions and its desires. If we live by the Spirit, let's follow the Spirit." - Galatians 5:22-25
Have you ever been caught doing something you were trying to hide? Or, better yet, have you ever been caught in a lie? What do you feel and what is your reaction when you get found out? Those feelings are the exact reason why I am the rule-follower I am today - I can't handle the thought of being caught and feeling guilty! Paul writes to Christians who have tied themselves to a works-based salvation. This early church believed that the only way for them to earn God's favor and grace was to do enough good things and to not do bad things. Within this culture, there is an overwhelming sense of pride that goes with doing the right things and a paralyzing guilt that follows after doing the wrong things. If you do something wrong while trying to earn your salvation you'll, ultimately, try to hide it from others or risk being found out. Paul realized that their obsession with earning their salvation led the community to anger, fights, dissension, envy, enmity, and strife. And so Paul, in his wisdom, wrote the church and explained that they have freedom from this thinking through Christ's sacrifice. As a result, the church may now live their lives in freedom with the Spirit. Well, what does this look like? Paul explains that when you live your life walking with the Spirit, then your life will be full of good and proper things: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Something we should notice is that these are not the "feelings" of the Spirit. Hardly do any of us feel love when serving someone who is unreasonable or hardly do we feel goodness when helping a thankless neighbor. Our emotions might not always resemble these fruits of the Spirit, but our words and actions can become ripe with each of these. The key is our intention and perseverance in learning to grow these fruits in our lives.
What does the fruit of your life look like? Would someone describe you as loving, or good, or kind, or gentle? What does walking with the Spirit look like in your life? Which fruit might be one you can put into practice this week?