Galatians - The Fruit Of The Spirit (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you once again for giving us this opportunity to spend a few moments in God’s word and in prayer. Today, we will look at the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 and 23, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.’ Paul now gives nine virtues that are evidence of being led by the Holy Spirit. Note- the destination is fruit not deeds. Deeds or works speak of what a man can do, as with the works or deeds of the law. On the other hand, fruit must grow out of life and in the case of a believer, it grows out of the life of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and enables us to produce the fruit in and through us. Paul uses the plural in describing the works of the flesh but he uses singular, that is fruit and not fruits for the Spirit. In the big picture, the Spirit has one work to do in all of us. These are not the gifts of the Holy Spirit which are distributed on an individual basis by the will of the Spirit, this is something for every Christian. The fruit of the Spirit is a direct contrast with the acts of the sinful nature. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious- sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, jealousy, discord and so much more. The passage describes all people to varying degrees when they do not know Christ are under the influence of the evil one. Our sinful flesh produces certain types of fruit that reflet our nature and the Holy Spirit produces type of fruit that reflect His nature. The Christian life is a battle of the sinful flesh against the new nature given by Christ. As human beings, we are still trapped in a body that desires sinful things. As believers, we have the Holy Spirit producing His fruit in us and we have the Holy Spirit’ power made available to us to conquer and overcome the acts of sinful nature. A believer will never be completely victorious in always demonstrating the fruits of the Holy Spirit. It is one of the main purposes of Christian life to progressively allow the Holy Spirit to produce more and more fruit in our lives and to allow the Holy Spirit to conquer opposing sinful desires. The fruit of the Spirit is what God desires our lives to exhibit and with the Holy Spirit’s help, this is possible.

Let us pray, Father, we thank you for your Holy Spirit that is in each of us. Though we are weak, we may sin but I pray that you will enable us to walk in the fruit of the Holy Spirit in every area of our life, that when people see us, engage with us, they will recognize that we belong to you. We thank you for your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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