An In-depth Look Into The Fruits Of The Spirit.

               The fruits of the Spirit, a wonderful thing God made for us to grow closer to Him, and to show Him off.  The fruits of the Spirit are Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Temperance (Galatians 5:22-23). Sounds pretty easy to do right? We hear it said millions of times, so it eventually begins to sound so simple. 

           Today I am going to break it down into what each fruit of the Spirit means. First, I will tell the definition of what the world thinks it means, and then what the Lord says it means. It may be a lot harder than we think, but its so rewarding when you try your best to do them to the glory of God. I know it's hard. I myself fail at these all of the time, but it's worth a try to get a more in depth look into what it means.

            First, there is LOVE. To the world people think it's just making someone feel wanted. But if you look at it deeper, it's much more than that. Love is being patient and kind. Love is not boastful, arrogant, or rude. Love is never ending. we should want to do everything we can for one another and not be mean or rude (John 15:12, 1 Corinthians 13:2, 13, Romans 13:8).

            Next comes one of my personal favorites, JOY. To the world joy means feeling delightful and vibrant. They see it as happiness. I don't think that's what God meant at all here. To God the power of Joy is never ending. It's our strength. It's the settled assurance that God is in control; the determined choice to praise God in every situation (Psalm 118:24, Isaiah 61:24, Philippians 4:4, 1 Thessalonians 5:6).

                Third is PEACE. Freedom from disturbance is what the world thinks it means. If we take a closer look in the Bible, it's talking about knowing that the Lord of the universe is by your side, resting in that and living it out. we should always strive to have peace with God and have assurance that he's in control ( Psalm 34:14, Isaiah 26:3, Romans 5:1, Philippians 4:7, and James 3:8).

                Here is one that's harder for me, LONGSUFFERING. To the world longsuffering means having and showing patience in spite of troubles. Lets take an in depth look into this and see what the Bible has to say about its meaning. Waiting with grace, not giving way to anger in any situation, patiently trusting, enduring lasting offence or hardship. I know the time will come when you are in a hard time, or maybe you're in one now. Just remember it is God's will. He will get you through this in time. Just patiently wait on him (Psalm37:7, Luke 8:15, Romans 12:12, Romans 15:15).

               Next up is GENTLNESS. The world tells you it's the quality of being kind and tender or mild-mannered,  but it's so much more. It's not being easily prideful, angered or going out to get revenge. Gentleness is not viewing ourselves as better than others. Gentleness is being kind and careful (2 Corinthians 10:1, Ephesians 4:2,Colossians 3:12, Thessalonians 2:7, James 3:17).

              Next Paul lists GOODNESS. The quality of being good, or virtuous is what everyone in the world tells us it means, but if you compare scripture with scripture, you can clearly see it means not having bad behavior, but an excellence of character. It's pretty much saying don't be out of control. Goodness is only possible through God. The Greek meaning, which was what Paul was writing in, is having an uprightness of heart and life. It's selflessness, compassion, and mercy. Goodness is all of those qualities combined (Psalms 23:6, Psalms 33:5, Psalms 52:1,  Romans 2:4,).

             Coming as number seven is FAITH. I also struggle with this one a lot. ok, it looks like the world actually got this one on the dot. Faith is the quality of having complete trust or confidence in someone or something. It is also trusting God in all the hard times (Romans 10:11, 1 Corinthians 16:13, 2 Corinthians 5:7).

            The second to last one is MEEKNESS. To the world this means the fact or condition of being meek as in submissiveness, but meekness is so much more than that. It's an attitude or quality of heart, whereby a person is willing to accept and submit. It basically means that your willing to live in any state the Lord puts you in (Zephaniah 2:3, 1 Corinthians 4:21, James 1:21).

            Finally, last but not least, we are left with TEMPERANCE. The world makes it out to be that temperance is controlling yourself and your emotions in difficult situations. Lets pull out our Bible one last time and see what God really meant by this. The Bible says temperance is resisting temptation and avoiding conforming to the world. patience requires self-control ( Acts 24:25, Galatians 5:23, 2 Peter 1:6).

           That's all of fruits of the Spirit broken down. All of the fruits of the Spirit are like climbing a hill. You slowly work at each one to build up to the top. Don't just try doing one of the fruits of the Spirit and then give up. we should continually try to work on all of the fruits of the Spirit. It's possible. In order to show God off and make Him happy trying to model Him, we have to slowly work on each quality to get there. You want to know the best part? There is no certain amount of these to stop at. You can keep practicing these as much as you want. The Bible says, "Against such there is no law". That means we can do it as often as we like (Galatians 5:23). Of course the fruits of the Spirit is not needed for Salvation, it's just another way to get closer to God. It's part of our daily walk with God. I hope all of you have learned a lot from this. Go out and give God the Glory!

             Remember, always have the joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart while being faithful to God. ( Philippians 4:4, 1 Peter 1:8-9).

            Please let me know in the comments below what is your easiest and hardest fruit of the Spirit for you personally to practice. If you guys would like, I may also do a more in depth look into each of the fruits of the Spirit and dig deeper into the Bible for answers; let me know if you are interested. I'm also open to ideas as to of what my next blog should be about. Please tell me your thoughts. I would be grateful to hear them.

                                    For Joyfully Faithful, I'm Sarai.