The Fruit of the Spirit

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"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control" (Galatians 5:22).

Apples grow from.....apple trees. It's how nature works. From the very beginning of creation God set into each genre the capacity to reproduce fruit "after its kind, according to its likeness" (Gen.1:11). This being true of trees, and animals, and also people -- then surely it is even more so true of the Holy Spirit.

In simple and plain language it comes down to this -- a man or woman cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit and continue to live an unholy life. Nor can it be said that we walking with the God of Love, if we are unloving to those around us. For each seed reproduces after its kind. If, then, the Seed of God is truly within us, then the fruit of God's ways and words will become evident through us.

Thus we come to Paul's famous list -- the fruit of the Spirit. However, instead of approaching this as a list of things that follow along with love; let's look instead at these as the various ways in which Love is made known in and through us.

For example, JOY is Love celebrating; PEACE is Love reposing; PATIENCE is Love enduring....and so forth.

These things, listed in sequence by the apostle, serve as the signs posted for us on the pathway to power in perilous times.

Over the following days we will take a closer look at each of these things with a single end in mind -- that our lives be truly filled with the Holy Spirit, and that God's love will be shed abroad not only in our hearts, but also through our lives to those around us.

See you tomorrow.
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