The Fruits of the Spirit

To my surprise, one of the most popular series I’ve ever done is “The Fruits of the Spirit”. I kept it simple and straightforward, so it was one of the easier ones to put together. It’s still getting regular views, which I think is pretty cool. So I thought I’d reblog them, revised and edited. Plus, no matter how’s many times I go through this series, there’s always room for improvement.

Hope you enjoy them again. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂  

A while ago, our pastor did a sermon series on this very topic. One of his points was that everyone produces fruit of some kind. Bad or good, whatever our lives produce is fruit. For example, anxiety, jealousy, unforgiveness, laziness…they’re all bad fruits. It dawned on me that perhaps if I worked on growing good things, by Gods grace, maybe some of the bad fruit wouldn’t have room to grow.

In Romans 8 it says:

“12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

17 and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

John MacArthur’s note on verse 13 from the MacArthur Study Bible says, “Paul’s first instruction concerning what his readers must do in the struggle with sin destroys several false views of how believers are made holy: 1) that in a crisis-moment we are immediately made perfect; 2) that we must “let God” take over while we remain idle; and 3) that some turning-point decision will propel us to a higher level of holiness. Rather, the apostle says the Spirit provides us with the energy and power to continually and gradually be killing our sins, a process never completed in this life.The means the Spirit uses to accomplish this process is our faithful obedience to the simple commands of Scripture.” (Emphasis mine)

By the power of the Holy Spirit, we are able to walk in truth towards holiness, and away from sin. This all starts with “faithful obedience to the simple commands of Scripture”. We won’t do it perfectly until our sin nature is gone, but we can bring God glory and pleasure.

So, we are going to be doing a simple study of the fruits of the Spirit. Each week I will give some Scripture explaining the current fruit, and then spend the following week actively looking for ways to put that fruit into practice. I hope you will join me. 🙂