The Fruit of the Spirit

[462 words] Galatians 5: 22-23 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” This well-known passage commonly inspires us to set a goal of pursuing these individual qualities, and these are wonderful goals to have. However, what many fail to realize is that these various qualities are not meant to be pursued individually. Instead, we should understand them as a whole. In the same way that fig tree produces figs rather than olives and a grapevine produces grapes rather than figs (James 3:1-12) the Spirit produces just one kind of fruit. The Spirit of God produces a godly spirit. These qualities then are descriptors of that fruit. You might describe an apple as red, crisp, and sweet. Here, Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit as something that is beautiful, wonderful and desirable. These…