Cultivating
the Fruit of the Spirit
As I work with people,
when you get right down to it, it is evident that what they really want is the fruit
of the spirit in their lives. They want
love. They want joy. They want peace. They want to be more patient with themselves
and with others. They want to gain more
self-control over their lives. Because we
are created in the image of God, and the fruit of the spirit is God’s ideal for
our lives, it should not surprise us that we inwardly crave for what God actually
wants for us – what he created us to be.
In Galatians 5:22-23 the apostle Paul informs us that, “the fruit of the spirit is
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control.” The true road to
contentment and inner tranquility runs right through this fruit of the spirit. The more we reflect Christ in our lives and become
what God intends us to be as his creatures, the more we will have personal fulfillment
here on earth. The farther we move away
from God’s ideal for our lives the more we will have inner conflict and
turmoil.
It seems odd and redundant
to say that the more we cultivate love, joy, and peace in our lives the more we
will have love, joy, and peace. However,
the problem is that we are often looking for these things in the wrong places. Or, we are on the wrong road to get where we
want to be. I am writing a series on
cultivating the fruit of the spirit. Certainly
not that I have perfected this in my own life, but my goal is to get us
thinking about this topic as we are all on our own road to spiritual sanctification, health, and maturity.
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