Ever since I can remember the Lord has really placed hunger for the fruits of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I remember belting, "I want your love, joy, peace, patience way down in my soul. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control," into a microphone while singing a solo in a musical we performed at a Hope Lutheran summer camp. Eight years later that lyric still goes through my head countless times every day.
"The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law."
-Galatians 5:19-23
God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us while we are still in this sinful world. We need to pray for Him to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us. Filling us with the fruits, ridding us of the sinful desires of our flesh. We have to choose to say "NO!" to our old ways of living, sins, selfish desires, wants, anxieties, etc. We need to ask God to help us become more and more holy. God calls us to rid ourselves of our old ways of living and become more and more like Jesus."What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.”
-Romans 6:19-22
“Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”
-2 Corinthians 7:1
"It really is the Holy Spirit who will be the One to cause this type of transformation to occur in your personality. However, the Holy Spirit will not work without the Word. Why? Because the Word of God will give you the knowledge that you will need in order to be really able to work with the Holy Spirit in this process. You have to know exactly what it is that God wants to change about you before the Holy Spirit will move to cause some of these changes to start to take place in your personality.The word “Spirit” is with a capital “S” – which means these 9 fruits are coming directly from the Holy Spirit, not from us. What this means is that God’s love, God’s peace, God’s joy and God’s goodness can start to be transmitted up into our personality. These are His attributes and personality qualities that will start to move into the core of our personality.Think about the ramifications of this – that God the Father Himself is allowing us to share in a part of His divine nature by allowing His Holy Spirit to transmit and impart these nine divine qualities right up into our soul and personality!"*In the summer during middle and high school I would often wake up at 8am to go for a run. I remember going through the list in my head, reflecting on each fruit, and asking God to help me be more loving to my family, more patient with myself, etc. I still enjoy going through the list, reflecting and asking God for more. I always need to ask for more of every fruit, and I always need to ask God to forgive me and rid me of all of the sins and selfish desires I have on my plate. It is important to pray for others, but also to pray for ourselves. We need to pray for ourselves so that we are able to help, love, and show others Christ. God really will answer those prayers if we let Him.I am going to make a list of all the fruits with a little bit of what the Bible and Bible commentaries say about each one. I am mainly doing this so I can come back and look at it to see what I need to ask the Holy Spirit to both rid and fill my heart with. ... Enjoy!Love 1. Unselfish, benevolent concern for another; brotherly concern; the object of brotherly concern or affection
2. The self-denying, self-sacrificing, Christ-like love which is the foundation of all other graces
3. Unselfish, loyal and benevolent concern for the well being of another
4. The high esteem which God has for His human children and the high regard which they, in turn, should have for Him and other people
5. To love, to have affection for someone; to like; to be a friend; the love of brothers for each other
"Our abilities as fallen humans to love one another is very limited. This is why it is so important for each and every Christian to work very closely with the Holy Spirit to get this fruit worked up into the core of our personalities. It is only when the love of the Holy Spirit starts to flow and enter into our personalities can we even begin to love God, love ourselves, and love one another to the degree and to the intensity that God would like to see from each one of us." *
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
-1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Joy 1. Great delight; gladness of heart
2. The happy state that results from knowing and serving God
3. That deep, abiding, inner rejoicing in the Lord
4. To rejoice, to be glad
5. Happy, joyful, cheerful, rejoicing, festive
"Realize that God can transmit this divine quality right up into your personality – and this will be His joy, not your joy, once it starts to flow up into you. And once God starts to release His joy into your system, you won’t be able to help but feel it. And once you are able to start feeling it again, it will become much easier for you to learn how to walk back in it in your own daily walk with the Lord."*
"The joy of the Lord is your strength."
-Nehemiah 8:10
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
-Hebrews 12:2
Peace 1. The presence and experience of right relationships
2. The tranquility of soul
3. Sense of well-being and fulfillment that comes from God and is dependent on His presence
4. The inner tranquility and poise of the Christian whose trust is in God through Christ
5. Tranquility, rest, harmony, the absence of agitation or discord
"I have found that once His peace starts to flow up into your mind, soul and emotions, it really is as the Bible says – a peace that surpasses all human understanding – especially when that peace comes in right in the middle of a severe storm cloud that you may be going through."*"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
-Romans 5:1
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."
-Romans 15:13
Longsuffering 1. Forbearance, patience
2. Patient endurance and steadfastness under provocation
3. Forbearance under ill-will, with no thought of retaliation
4. Patience, endurance, steadfastness and forbearance
5. Forbearance under suffering and endurance in the face of adversity
6. Ability to endure persecution and ill-treatment
"One of the ways of our God is that He is a very patient and longsuffering God. His ways are not our ways. And one of the things you will find out very early on about His ways is that He works on a much slower time frame than we do. And unless you learn to adjust to His slower way of working things out, you will find yourself easily losing your patience with Him and how He wants to work things out in your life.God operates on a much longer and slower time frame than we are used to operating in the fast paced world in which we live in. You will really have to work with the Holy Spirit on this particular quality to get it properly worked up into your personality. The reason for this is that your own impatience will start to act up and try to override the patience and longsuffering that the Holy Spirit will try and transmit to you. At times, it may become of battle of wills – your will against His will."*"We are "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness."
-Colossians 1:11
"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."
-Ephesians 4:2
Kindness 1. Quality or state of being kind
2. The steadfast love that maintains relationships through gracious aid in times of need
3. Goodness of heart, serviceable, good, gracious, pleasant
4. Love for mankind, hospitality, acts of kindness, readiness to help, human friendship, benevolence, taking thought of others
5. Goodness in action, sweetness of disposition, gentleness in dealing with others, affability
6. The ability to act for the welfare of those taxing your patience
"This is a very beautiful quality to have transmitted up into your soul and personality by the Holy Spirit. Not only will you be able to touch others with this godly quality, but you will also be able to touch yourself – because you will feel so much better about yourself if you can learn how to treat others with much more kindness and respect in your daily dealings and affairs with them."*
We should live "in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left."
-2 Corinthians 6:6-7
Goodness 1. Beneficence, ready to do good, love in action
2. Kindness in actual manifestation, virtue equipped for action, a bountiful propensity both to will and to do what is good, intrinsic goodness producing a generosity and a Godlike state or being
3. The word beneficence means the fact or quality of being kind or doing good
"One of the key qualities a nonbeliever will pick up on in a solid Christian is this quality of goodness. This quality has an ability to really get down deep into the core of a believer’s personality. To those who really have this quality, you can tell that it is something operating deep down inside of them. This quality is not something that waivers like some of the other qualities can. These people are good down to their very cores of their personalities. You can see it and feel it when you get around these types of people.A truly good person could not even begin to try and use you or manipulate you for their own personal gain because they are too good and too righteous to even begin to think along those lines. This is why these kinds of people are so trustworthy and why so many people are drawn to them – because you feel so safe by just being around them." *
"Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power."
-2 Thessalonians 1:11
"For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth"
-Ephesians 5:9
Faithfulness 1. Fidelity which makes one true to his promise and faithful to his task
2. Steadfast, dedicated, dependable and worthy of trust
3. Steadfast, unchanging and thoroughly grounded in relation to the other
4. Dependability, loyalty and stability
"God the Father really holds this particular quality in high esteem, and this is one quality that He will really expect you to operate very strongly in – not only in your own personal relationship with Him, but also in your other personal relationships with your family and friends. In other words, He wants you to be faithful and loyal to your spouses, to your children, to your parents, and to your good friends."*"O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth."
-Isaiah 25:1
"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith."
-Ephesians 3:16-17
Gentleness 1. Mildness combined with tenderness
2. Gracious, kindly disposition, controlled strength
3. A disposition that is even-tempered, tranquil, balanced in spirit, unpretentious and that has passions under control
4. A character that is equitable, reasonable, forbearing, moderate, fair and considerate
5. Power and strength under control
6. Willing to pardon injuries, correct faults. One who rules his spirit well
"Since Jesus walked our earth as a man – the Son of Man – study His actions very carefully when you read the gospels and how He handled different types of people. There were times that He would engage and set people straight, like He did with some of the Scribes and Pharisees. But there were other times that He dealt with people very gently, with kindness and gentleness. His gentle way of handling some of these people is what really jumps out at you when you really study how He handled different types of people.Once you really start walking in the Holy Spirit with His fruits operating and flowing through you – you will really be able to feel and sense when you should handle a certain person or a certain type of situation with more of a touch of gentleness rather than with any kind of stern rebuke or condemnation. There is a time for tough love – but there are also times that just a gentle and loving touch is all that is really needed to properly handle a certain situation."*"Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted."
-Galatians 6:1
Self-Control 1. Temperance, rational restraint of natural impulses
2. Sober, temperate, calm and dispassionate approach to life, having mastered personal desires and passions
3. Calls for a self-disciplined life following Christ’s example of being in the world but not of the world
4. Restraint or discipline exercised over one’s behavior
"The Bible tells us that our spirits and our flesh will war against each other in this life. Our flesh wants immediate self-gratification at all costs and will stop at nothing to try and get it. Our spirits know that some of our fleshly desires are not right for us and as a result, there will be a tug of war between the two – and sometimes it will be a major tug of war. And the only thing that will be able to curb and control some of the desires of our flesh is the quality of self-control.If you are willing to yield to Him and allow Him to start to work all 9 of these fruits into your personality – then you will find yourself starting to grow in ways and in areas that you never thought were possible in this life. His supernatural power in this area will blow you away once you see how far He can really take you to become the person that God would like you to become in Him in this lifetime."*
"But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love."
-2 Peter 1:5-7
Thank You Lord for Your Word that teaches us what we should always be hungry for: Your Fruits of the Holy Spirit. I love You LORD!Thanks for Your AMAZING love.*(http://www.bible-knowledge.com/fruits-of-the-holy-spirit/)
(definitions from Bible commentaries and dictionaries)
