“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
So it’s just after Easter, you’ve streamed a service online due to social distancing, and for some of you a digital altar call was given. Meaning, you were invited to pray the prayer of salvation and accept Christ for the first time. For what I’m assuming is the majority of you though, you’re looking more towards rededicating your life to Christ, and you’re having trouble displaying the fruit of the Spirit in your day to day life. You fall into long patterns of this or that sin, you’re not sure if the Holy Spirit has left you, and you just can’t seem to get things right. “Do I have the Holy Spirit,” you might be asking yourself.
If you’ve believed sincerely in Jesus, and wish to walk in his ways, but can’t seem to get the fruit of the Spirit to just flow out of you like it seems to do for some, here is a key. In 1 Corinthians 14:32, the Apostle Paul says “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the control of the prophets.” Did you know that the gift of prophecy comes to some people as a spiritual gift? So it is given by the Holy Spirit. Paul asserts that the Spirit, or at least the fruit thereof, is under OUR control. I say this because some people wonder why they don’t display the fruit of the Spirit. Wish as they may, they keep doing fleshly things or responding with fleshly attitudes in situations. What I’m telling you is that if you don’t show fruit, question the control you use and the intentional production of fruit rather than ask if the Holy Spirit is present in your heart.
Think about it, you don’t just tell your employee the conduct you expect at work, what machines to use, what computers to use, without training her how to operate according to company standards. And if you sent her into the work area without first teaching her the basics, she’d feel pretty down about herself for not being an effective worker. So it is with the fruit of the Spirit.
Some people assert that the Holy Spirit is supernatural, so it sort of does the job and brings forth the fruit like magic. Voila! A person gets saved, receives the Spirit and starts producing all this wonderful fruit. SUCH patience, SUCH joy, SUCH kindness that Martha displays. And I’ll admit, some people just naturally gravitate to the Spirit and seem to have no trouble bringing forth all kinds of goodness and gentleness. Those people are the bane of my existence, because when I see them operate in their gifts I feel SO inadequate; left out, even. I just must be rotten inside because rottenness keeps coming out when I get into situations where some good fruit should be expected.
But a person’s natural temperament comes into play in the process. If that person already flourishes in certain settings, the fruit in their life will seem to come with such abundance and ease, and it can be deceiving. Because part of their fruit comes from the setting they choose to operate in. I drive a van for a delivery company, and forgive me for being an introvert, but my natural goodness and patience comes along much easier when I’m behind the wheel, by myself, with a Diet Coke in the cup holder and some good music playing on the radio. And when I deliver to a customer, they’re much more likely to get a smile from me than a frown, because I’m in a great mood!
Speaking on spiritual fruit, if you lack it you can practice it. I’m naturally a sit around and write or read or listen to music kind of guy, so let’s say that I struggle with laziness. (I do.) Laziness usually implies a lack of self control, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Let’s say that in my prayer list for that day, I can’t complete my list unless I also sweep and mop the kitchen floor. (Something I don’t usually do.) So I make a point to say l’m mopping this floor for Jesus today. I do it, I check it off my list, and yes, I have joy and peace because I know I’ve done something for God that day. Notice that in attempting to create one type of fruit, I created two extra fruits to go with it. Fruit IS magical, and yet unyieldingly practical in that sense.
Are you doubting your own salvation because you lack spiritual fruit? I’ve been saved 22 years and about 17 of those years were plagued with doubts of whether I was even a part of God’s family. Why? Merely a lack of church attendance and intentionally spawned spiritual fruit. Since I didn’t feel saved, I would go and drink alcohol to numb the pain, or use a drug. My commitment to God was so wishy-washy I couldn’t tell if I was a child of God or of Satan. “But wait,” you say, “ isn’t the Holy Spirit supposed to testify with my own spirit that I am His child? Shouldn’t God, the Spirit be comforting me with the knowledge?” It depends. Are you in broken fellowship with God? Are you carrying around a sin that haunts you and keeps you from praying, because you fear God’s reaction? When we sin, we break communion with God, and it’s a terrible feeling. And since the Holy Spirit is also God, it only makes sense we’d be in broken fellowship with Him, too. If you’re habitually using drugs, it’s hard for any real trustworthy frequency to come through your spiritual antennae, much less the Spirit of God.Whatever the sin, start new today and pray he breaks you of it. If you must, fast from that sin for a matter of weeks, or just days, or just one day, or just two hours. Make sure God knows you’re doing it for him. Eventually you’ll find yourself back in God’s good graces, and taking a few baby steps to produce fruit can give you joy, which will also give you peace. That peace could cause you to go out of your way and do another thing you normally don’t do. Like Paul said, the spirit of the prophet is under subjection...meaning it’s only going to do what you do and follow your lead. The Holy Spirit is not our slave, but a servant and counselor sent by God JUST for you and me. He will use your conscience to guide you, and then YOU commit the righteous act. Practice is hard, but if you’ve ever heard a great electric guitar player making lovely noise over a nice crunchy drum kit, you know practice makes perfect, or perfectly beautiful.
Some people ask, is the Holy Spirit a feeling? No, He is a person who has molded and shaped himself into a comforter and servant, sent by God JUST to assist you, and he is also God. Back in 1998, I received Christ after learning a lot about him from the internet and a hotel bible in Maui, at a five star resort. I was nervous about my plane ride home to Missouri, thinking “what if the plane crashes?” When we got home safely, I forgot all about the silly airplane superstition and Jesus, too. Until I opened a Christian music cassette given by an aunt. The songs weren’t even that terrific, but I was moved by them. Remembering my learning about Jesus in the hotel, I didn’t know a prayer to pray, and I simply said “yes,” out loud. In that instant I felt a wave of love come over me. I’d never felt anything like it and haven’t since. It lasted for hours, and I just laid there playing the Christian cassette and thanking God. When it came to forgiving sin, God had a lot of ground to cover with me. I had a sense of not only how much he was forgiving, but how completely he was forgiving it. On that day, the fruit of the Spirit would have been a breeze. Anywhere I went, I could've displayed love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness...well you get my point. (I was still lazy though.) For some, the Holy Spirit can be a sort of feeling, but not all the time. What I experienced was a feast for the senses unlike anything I’ve ever known, and though I sought to recover it by listening to the Christian tape over and over, it eventually faded. I’ve never had that volume of pure emotion and goodness, as a feeling, since those first few days as a Child of God. In fact, if you feasted on feelings that often and that exorbitantly, you would probably become impossible to deal with. “I’m in my feelings, leave me alone!!”
Just to recap, the Holy Spirit has been sent to be a comforter and counselor for you. The Spirit is the same as God the Father and Jesus the Son. That means the one who knew you inside and out since before you were even stitched together in your mother’s womb, the one who created every part of you and placed you in a unique position in time just to do wonderful things through him; the very God of existence is dwelling on the inside of your heart. Sometimes he will give you feelings, sometimes he won’t. But every little decision you make can be to bless him, in turn creating more fruit, or to grieve and quench him, which in turn keeps him from being your comforter in those extended times of disobedience. The fruit of the Spirit, more often than not, isn’t given...it is practiced.
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