But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Galatians 5:22
In this verse, “fruit” is singular, not plural. This tells us the character traits listed are stages of maturity rather than individual fruits.
Apple trees produce buds in early Spring, then flowers, then the petals fall off, the base of the flower swells into a tiny apple, which grows into the mature, delicious fruit.
The first bud of spiritual fruit is love. Love is the basic, defining character trait of the Christian life. Jesus said, “ By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35). The identifying characteristic of a disciple of Jesus Christ is love. In my own nature, my highest desire and driving motivation is to be loved. We begin as infants and through all stages of life we seek to be wanted, included, cared for. A life spent seeking love leads to frustration and disappointment. The spiritual life begins with laying aside my desires and seeking to love others, regardless of return. Loving others is the bud of joy.
Greek, the language of the New Testament, has 4 different words for love. The word Paul uses in Galatians 5:22 means an unselfish, sacrificial love. It is the word that is used for how God loves us.
Every other kind of love comes with expectations. Romantic love, family love, friendship love — all must be returned in order to be complete. Loving someone in one of these ways without being loved in return leads to heartache, bitterness and broken relationships.
Agape love, Godly love, is self fulfilling. The completion of loving someone in this way is not in them loving you back, but in you getting to experience the way God loves you personally and deeply. In Romans 5:8, Paul gives us a breathtaking picture of God’s infinite, undemanding love — “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God displayed His love for us by Christ giving His life for those who continued to sin. He loved us while we hated Him. John 3:16 tells us that God loved and sacrificed for all, knowing many would never accept or return His love. This is why the doctrine of limited atonement is dangerous – it diminishes the self sufficiency of God’s love. The fact that there are those in Hell for whom Christ died does not diminish Christ’s efficacy, it magnifies God’s magnanimity. Real love, God’s love, the love of God’s people produced by the Holy Spirit in the new nature, is complete in the giving.
Joy
In the New Testament, we never find joy or happiness defined, but we find them described. The word Μακάριοι is in many translations represented as “blessed”, but is often, and better, translated as “happy”. Read Matthew 5, in which chapter the conditions of happiness are described 9 times. Throughout the New Testament we see “happy” followed by a “because”. Happiness is a response to circumstances.
On the other hand, χαρᾶς is translated as “joy”. This word is very closely related to the word χάρις, which means both grace and gift. There are never conditions described for joy in the New Testament, simply commands to rejoice! Read Matthew 28:9, Romans 12:15, Philippians 3:1. God does not command us to a reaction but to an attitude. An attitude that understands life as a gift, and settles in to trust the Giver regardless of circumstances.
Joy is produced by love because love turns our thoughts away from ourselves and focuses on others. O. Henry wrote a wonderful story, titled “The Gift of the Magi”, in which a man and wife are very poor, but each possess a cherished item they value above any comfort selling would provide. Yet each secretly sells their treasure in order to buy a Christmas gift for the other. The heartache of the sacrifice was nothing to the joy of the giving. Hebrews 12:2 says, “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame…”. We see even for Jesus, the parent of joy was sacrificial love. In order to experience the joy of redeeming us, He endured the suffering of the cross. If He had not loved us enough to die for our sins while we still rebelled against Him, he could not have experienced the joy that was set before Him.
Have you ever picked an apple off a tree and bitten into it, to discover a worm living inside? How did the worm get there?
Most of the time, a worm in the fruit starts out as an egg on the blossom. When the apple tree flowers, insects come and lay their eggs in the blooms, and the fruit forms around them. Once the fruit is large enough and ripe enough, the eggs hatch and the worms eat their way out. Apple orchards must spray the budding trees to protect the ripened fruit.
We have already seen how joy is the product of sacrificial love. But sometimes our love gets contaminated with hopes of recognition, or desires for recompense, or feelings of pride or self righteousness. Then the joy that follows is also contaminated with discontent, or disappointment or hurt feelings.
To have pure fruit, we must guard against the eggs of corruption.
Peace
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
I Peter 5:6-7
In this verse we learn that my anxiety is a symptom of pride. If I can’t be in control, I don’t want to participate. So I build a lifestyle that gives me a sense of control, even though I know there are a million factors that could overturn it all in a second. So I worry about that.
Peace comes with humility. I have to constantly remind myself that things can happen and there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t control other people’s feelings or reactions. I can’t control the weather or my health or the economy. But God can. My only choice is to do the thing that is in front of me, trusting God. He put me in this place and He set up my circumstances. He isn’t going to be surprised by what happens. Things are out of my control, but nothing is beyond His mighty hand. He cares for me, and I can trust Him.
Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. Ecclesiastes 2:24
Patience
My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
James 1:2-4
How does James expect us to consider falling into various trials as unadulterated joy? This is the opposite of my natural response to being surprised by one tough time after another. My flesh wants to feel frustration, anger, discouragement, inadequacy. God says I should experience joy. How?
Because we know the trials are purposeful and useful. There is an end, and that end is progress toward our real, complete self. It is the joy of trusting the Master Potter that allows patience to have it’s complete work accomplished.
Many find joy in working out. Why? Working out is painful, dirty, sweaty, time consuming. If we push ourselves properly, we will experience failure more times than we find success. But we know all the pain, sweat, failure and frustration is changing us into a new, better self, with more strength, more control, more patience. We test our limits to expand them.
James tells us the testing of our faith produces patience. We endure to be able to endure more, to be who we are supposed to be.
Menominee Grace 