Fruit of The Spirit
Fruit salad!
It's delicious, right? Who doesn't love a great fruit salad? (If you don't, just pretend that you do for now.) What makes fruit salad so fantastic is the mix of fruit. It's not a just a bowl of sliced apples or grapes or melon, but it's all of those, and more, intermixed in a medley that creates something sweet and wonderful. Each of the individual fruits work together to create the salad.
Now, we see the same thing when we look at The Fruit of The Spirit.
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Self-Control.
These are, each, fantastic character traits, virtues to strive for, but it is excessively difficult, if not impossible to truly possess any one without the others. They are a spiritual fruit salad that work together to create the type of person that a follower of Christ should be.
Benjamin Franklin made it a goal to achieve "moral perfection" by focusing on 13 "virtues," one at a time, until he perfected them all, and while he made headway in improving his moral character, he never achieved perfection, never arrived at that perfect "fruit salad," because this virtuous life doesn't come through self discipline and hard work. It comes through walking by and being led by the Holy Spirit.
If we are able to display and live by the nine virtues in the Fruit of The Spirit, and really, you have to have them all to fully have any of them, we would be living a life that models Christ. This life is not unattainable, but it is impossible in our own power.
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ... But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
... If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
" -- Galatians 5:16, 18, 22-23, 25 ESV
So, I urge you to pursue this delicious spiritual fruit salad in your own life, but not through your own power or determination to be more loving or kind or exhibit more self-control. Pursue it by following the Spirit of God, living according to His leading, seeking Him above all else, even the Fruit, and this fruit will naturally show up in your life.
It's delicious, right? Who doesn't love a great fruit salad? (If you don't, just pretend that you do for now.) What makes fruit salad so fantastic is the mix of fruit. It's not a just a bowl of sliced apples or grapes or melon, but it's all of those, and more, intermixed in a medley that creates something sweet and wonderful. Each of the individual fruits work together to create the salad.
Now, we see the same thing when we look at The Fruit of The Spirit.
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Self-Control.
These are, each, fantastic character traits, virtues to strive for, but it is excessively difficult, if not impossible to truly possess any one without the others. They are a spiritual fruit salad that work together to create the type of person that a follower of Christ should be.
Benjamin Franklin made it a goal to achieve "moral perfection" by focusing on 13 "virtues," one at a time, until he perfected them all, and while he made headway in improving his moral character, he never achieved perfection, never arrived at that perfect "fruit salad," because this virtuous life doesn't come through self discipline and hard work. It comes through walking by and being led by the Holy Spirit.
If we are able to display and live by the nine virtues in the Fruit of The Spirit, and really, you have to have them all to fully have any of them, we would be living a life that models Christ. This life is not unattainable, but it is impossible in our own power.
"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ... But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
... If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
" -- Galatians 5:16, 18, 22-23, 25 ESV
So, I urge you to pursue this delicious spiritual fruit salad in your own life, but not through your own power or determination to be more loving or kind or exhibit more self-control. Pursue it by following the Spirit of God, living according to His leading, seeking Him above all else, even the Fruit, and this fruit will naturally show up in your life.
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