Fruit of the Holy Spirit Meaning
When it comes to the fruit of the Spirit, I can remember the messages that I was often taught in church. “In order to become more like Jesus and give Him a good name, you should really work on trying to exhibit these characteristics in your life. Be more loving to people, have more patience, be kinder and gentler with others.”
In other words, I was taught to look at all of the fruits of the Spirit, evaluate how I was doing with each of those characteristics, and then try to work on getting better in each area. Sometimes, people would say to do that with the Holy Spirit’s help, but the emphasis was on my need to change into a better person…one who exhibits the fruit of the Spirit.
Maybe you’ve done the same thing. Maybe you’ve looked at the list in Galatians 5:22, and thought, “I sure do need to work on being more patient,” or “I wish I had more self-control.”
But is that really what the meaning of the fruit of the Spirit passage is?
WHOSE FRUIT IS IT?
Look at Galatians 5:22 and notice whose fruit we are talking about.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control.
(Galatians 5:22)
Notice, it’s not your fruit. It’s the Spirit’s fruit!
In other words, you are not the one who is supposed to produce this fruit. It’s not up to you to get better at being patient, having more love, or exhibiting self-control. These are things the Spirit produces through you.
Jesus even said in John 15 that we are the branches and that He is the vine, and that as we abide in Him, He will produce the fruit through us.
You are the bearer of the fruit, not the producer. There is a big difference between the two! If you are trying to work on getting better in each of these areas, you are going to have a difficult time.
IN CHRIST, YOU ALREADY POSSESS THE FRUIT
If you have said yes to Jesus for salvation, you are united to Him in a spiritual union. You are in a vine-branch relationship with Him through the Spirit. The Spirit is united to your spirit, and you have become a new creation with a new heart.
With the Spirit being united to your spirit, you already possess His fruit.
In other words, in Christ, you are loving. You have joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
The fruit of the Spirit is part of your new spiritual DNA. It’s not something you need to manufacture. You don’t need a 7-step plan to have more self-control. You have self-control in Christ.
The question is not whether you possess the fruit, but whether the fruit will be manifested through you in the situations and circumstances of your life.
How is the fruit manifested through you? How do you experience what is yours in Christ?
SET YOUR MIND ON THE SPIRIT
In Romans 8, the apostle Paul gives us the answer.
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
(Romans 8:5-6)
To experience the fruit of the Spirit being manifested through you, you set your mind on the Spirit.
Paul tells us that if your mind is set on the flesh, then you will experience death. You’ll be unloving, impatient, unkind, lack self-control, etc. When I’m focusing on me and how that person made me feel when he cut me off in traffic, or when someone was gossiping about me, that is usually when I am unkind and unloving.
But if you set your mind on the Spirit, you will experience His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control through you.
I just returned from spending a week at Youth Camp with the students at my church, and while you are at camp, you are focusing on spending time in worship, doing Bible studies, listening to sermons, and praying with your group. In other words, you are setting your mind on the Spirit.
People often say that they wish they could stay at camp because of the “spiritual high” they feel during their time away, but the same Spirit dwells in us at home and in our daily situations and circumstances. We just have to learn how to set our minds on the Spirit during our daily lives.
CONCLUSION
The meaning of the fruit of the Spirit passage is to show us the type of attributes we have in the Spirit and that it gets produced through us by Him. We are not to look at this list and try to work on getting better in each one of these areas.
We need to realize that by God’s grace, we possess the fruit of the Spirit in our union with Him. As we set our minds on the Spirit and walk by dependence on Him, the fruit will flow from the vine (Jesus) and through the branch (us) and be manifested into this world.