The Fruit of the Spirit
by Daniel Burton
Throughout my Christian faith, I have heard many discussions and debates on a “Spirit-filled life.” Some concentrate on the power and authority that flows from a person as an indication of a Spirit-filled life. Others have stated that the sign that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is present in the gift of tongues. Each of these is more sure than the last and intent on being right. For all the merits of these debate, they tend to rely heavily on what the Holy Spirit does FOR us instead of what the Holy Spirit does IN us. There is an inherent danger in judging the presence of the Spirit by a person’s power or influence. This is not to in any way diminish the gifts of the Spirit, but rather we should discern the presence of the Holy Spirit in a person by their fruit their heart produces.
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. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the hand and mechanism of life’s creation, sent by Jesus Christ, from the beginning of time. The work of the Holy Spirit is transformative in the lives of believers. When a person believes in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit begins its work in a person. As the mechanism of true, genuine life, the Holy Spirit knows which things are created with the DNA of God and which are the representation of the fleshly desires. When the Spirit renews a person fully, the sign of the Spirit in a person is the fruit that is produced. For the Christian, Galatians 5:22-25 serves as the metric and sign for what occurs in every believer when the Holy Spirit works in the heart.
The Role of the Holy Spirit
Immediately before listing the fruit of the Spirit, Paul lists the fruit of the flesh. “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.” (Galatians 5:19-21, NIV) Sin destroyed our intended design and sought to attack our very spiritual DNA and connection to our heavenly Father. Usually, we mask our desires for these things through self-righteous actions and attitudes, but their result is always in the flesh. No spiritual attribute can be produced apart from the spirit and a self-serving fleshly heart cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.
When the acts of the flesh are laid out before us, it become evident and apparent that we need a Savior and we need the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When the Spirit’s indwelling occurs, the Spirit purges the heart of anything that did not come about by His hands. Carefully but firmly, the Spirit makes our hearts His home, removing the things that do not belong. The Spirit convicts us of our fleshly nature and reveals our true intended design and making the flesh unable to remain. People fear the conviction of the Holy Spirit as painful, but this conviction is the tending of the soil of our heart to produce the fruit of righteousness that comes from above. It is a painful, but necessary process. It is the removal of familiar death and exchanging it for the restoration of Spiritual renewal.
The Fruit of the Spirit As Evidence
The evidence of the Spirit is not any particular indwelling or gift, as these are gifted to various different people at various different times and for various different purposes. The evidence of the Spirit is measured by our fruit. A person claiming they are a Christian but exhibiting no form of anything above cannot rightly be said to have the Spirit inside of them. It is not gifts that demonstrate the evidence of the Holy Spirit but, as Jesus instructs in the Gospels, the fruit provides that evidence. “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Matthew 7:18-20, NIV) 
The Spirit of God is alive and moving and wants to move in the hearts and souls of people, recreating and renewing them to their intended purpose. The Spirit deeply desires to display Itself through the fruit you produce so that as the world sees you, it will see an image of the eternal God.
During this series, we are going to dig deep into the meaning of each part of the Fruit of the Spirit. Yet, as many have pointed out before me, these are not all individual fruits of the Spirit but a collective whole. Together, they make up the Fruit of the Spirit and the evidence of the Spirit at work in our lives. Together, we will embark on the journey of what the fruit of the Spirit are by God’s standards, not by the standards of man. We will look at their true and rightly expressions and the corrupted image the flesh attempts to portray. Our hope is by understanding the nature of the gifts of the Spirit, we will be better able to apply them to our lives.
For more in this series, check out The Fruit of the Spirit
