Significance of the Fruit of the Holy Spirit
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)
1. Why Must We Learn about the Fruit of the Spirit?
If we accept Jesus as the Savior and receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the authority as children of God. From then on we should live lives that are different from that of the worldly people. We should rid ourselves of a life of flesh that follows our own desires, and live a life in the truth following the Holy Spirit.
Flesh here does not refer to our physical body but it refers to sins that are shown by actions. Living in sins shown by actions is the life of flesh. And God tells us in Genesis 6:3, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh;” If those who claim to be children of God live in flesh, God cannot be with them and they will eventually not be able to inherit the kingdom of God.
Therefore, God’s children who are saved must act in light, be led by the Holy Spirit, and live a life in God who is light. And those who are living within the guidance of the Holy Spirit will bear the fruits of Holy Spirit as the evidence of that life. If you are living a proper Christian life, you obviously will bear the fruits of Holy Spirit and the fruits will grow day by day.
Just as it is not appropriate for a ten-year-old boy to act like a three-year-old, it is not a true maturing Christian life unless your faith grows with time. So if you have lukewarm faith that is staying at the same place, or if you are backsliding, it means you do not have true faith. The true kind of spiritual faith is given from above to the extent that you bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual faith cannot be possessed just because you desire to have it. God gives it to the extent to which you cultivate your heart in spirit by bearing fruits of the Holy Spirit.
You bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit according to your measure of faith and the deeds that are done. Shortly we will go into it in greater detail but, to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit, first of all, you have to cry out and pray, meditate on God’s word day and night with the help of the Holy Spirit, and act within goodness, light, and righteousness. As you bear the fruits more perfectly you will come to bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in your heart, you will more closely resemble the Lord, and you will recover the lost image of God the Father.
Therefore, if you are longing for sanctification, you must keep an understanding about the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit as guide posts and check and change yourself. Only then will you be able to receive the Lord as His bride, beautifully dressed without any blemish or spot.
The Nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit found in Galatians 5; the Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5; and the Love that is described in 1 Corinthians 13 are good guide posts to check the progress and maturity of the Christian life of believers. It is because you can check yourself to see how much you have changed into spirit and the level of faith you have reached. Being a Christian for a long time and knowing a lot about the Bible are not guide posts. Christian longevity and simple knowledge do not mean that one’s faith is great. The standard for comparison is how much you are bearing the spiritual fruits.
That is why God has given us these criteria with which we can distinguish ourselves as to how much we have become a spiritual person in our Christian life according to God’s word. When we reflect upon ourselves by these words, we can see how far we have come toward Heaven and our final destination, New Jerusalem, which is the most beautiful place in Heaven. Only when you bear the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit, the fruits of Beatitudes, and Love will you be qualified to go to the 3rd kingdom of heaven as a person having the 4th level of faith.
When you are traveling, it is completely different knowing your exact destination and not knowing exactly where you are going. For example, suppose you live in Washington DC and plan to have a crusade in the city of New York City in the USA. When you drive a car, starting from Washington, there are many places in between before you reach the City
of New York. There are big cities like Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Trenton and also other smaller cities and towns.
There might be somebody who can remember the names of even the small towns, but most of you can only remember the names of big cities. But, even if you only know about the bigger cities, you can determine how far you have come, how much more you have to go, which city you will pass next, and so on. Also, you can distinguish whether or not you are going the right way to New York. When you know exactly where the destination is and where the cities and towns you have to pass on the way are, you can reach your destination without any mistakes. It is the same with the journey to Heaven.
Still, finding the way to Heaven is different from finding the way to a place on this earth. On this earth, even if you do not know the way, you can reach your destination if you follow somebody who knows the way. But that is not the case with the journey to Heaven. You cannot just follow someone next to you on the way to Heaven. You have to find the way all by yourself because it is a place where you can go only with individual faith. You can find the way to Heaven in the Bible, in God’s word, but nobody can really know the whole Bible. Of course, you can possess the whole Bible in your heart as your faith grows, but you might not be able to remember all of it. However, even though you cannot remember the whole Bible, there are some parts that you must keep in mind to get to Heaven, especially to get to New Jerusalem.
It is similar to remembering at least the names of the big cities to get to New York City. That is why there are some parts in the Bible that are like the big cities or major stops on the way to the final destination. These are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit, the Beatitudes, and the spiritual love described in 1 Corinthians 13.
We should completely understand the content and the full meaning of these words and keep them in mind while we lead a Christian life on earth to go to Heaven. Only then will we be able to see how much we have become sanctified in our Christian life, how much closer to New Jerusalem we have come, and how much we resemble our bridegroom the Lord.
2. To Bear the Fruits of the Holy Spirit
You reap what you sow in spiritual realm just as it is on this earth. But just sowing a lot does not guarantee an abundant harvest. It depends on what kind of field you sow and how well you take care of the crops. If you just sow seeds and leave them, birds or animals might eat them. The seeds might be burned by the sun or they may wither and die soon after they sprout.
It is the same in the spiritual realm. In the Bible, God compares His Word with seeds. Namely, attending worship service and listening to God’s Word is same as sowing seeds in the field. Even though people attend the same worship service and listen to the same message, that is, even though people sow the same seeds of Word on their hearts, the results are different from person to person. Some seeds sprout, bloom, and bear the fruit while other seeds are immediately taken away by Satan. Other seeds sprout, but dry up soon. Still other seeds just sprout but do not grow any more, and do not bear any fruit.
Even if the seed bears fruit, it may bear different fruit. If you have sown in your heart the words that you have listened and you have taken care of them by praying fervently according to God’s Word, you should have abundant fruit even after just a short time. That is to say, it is possible to quickly bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit abundantly.
The number of seeds you sow is important in bearing abundant fruit. But, what is more important is how good the soil is on which you sow the seeds, and how well you take care of them. For God’s Word to sprout, bloom, and bear abundant fruit, we have to quickly get rid of the evil, which are like the stones and weeds, from our hearts to make good soil. After sowing seeds into good soil, we have to supply the water, catch the worms, and pull out the weeds until the seed bears fruit and it is harvested.
Namely, we have to receive the living water of God’s Word continuously. We must always be filled with the Holy Spirit so that the enemy devil and Satan, which are like the worms, cannot come close. We have to get rid of our evil that is like the weeds that choke out the sprout and prevent it from bearing the fruit. When you continue this process of getting rid of evil, you will soon find the fruit of the Holy Spirit in you.
The fruits of the Holy Spirit are closely inter-related. For example, only when you bear the fruit of love can you follow the truth. Only when you follow the truth, will joy as well as peace come from above. In the same way only when you have peace, does joy come from the deep heart. You can also bear perfect love when you have peace. Your Christian life would be hard without peace. You can be filled with joy and lead your Christian life more enthusiastically when you have peace. When you continue your Christian life in this way, you can bear other fruits of the Holy Spirit as well. The nine fruits of the Holy Spirit are closely related to each other, and when all of these fruits unite to become one, we can have the original heart of God.
By the way, until we bear these fruits completely, we might face some difficult moments. These moments are actually the processes of going into the spirit. We might feel it is too much for us at the moment. But, if we look back on ourselves after those moments, we will find that we have grown up spiritually. Also, we will gain the confidence that we will be able to overcome any kind of hardships.
For example, getting close to the harvest time, fruits that are mature might fall on account of strong winds, hurricanes and other storms. But in such a crisis, those branches that hold strongly to the tree and the fruits that cling to the branches will finally be beautiful fruit. There will be hard times before the harvesting of crops, but we must overcome the crises to gain good fruit.
In much the same way, you will face hard times in the process of bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit. However, if you hold onto the Lord, who is the true vine, and become strong having a deep root in the Word and praying with hope, you can overcome any kind of hardships and win the victory. If you make your spirit strong and show your acts by making God’s Word your spiritual food and feeling it is sweeter than honey, then you will become a person of spirit who abundantly bears the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.
3. How to Bear the Fruit of the Holy Spirit
What are the fruits of the Holy Spirit? A fruit is something that is produced as the seed is sown, sprouts, and blooms. In the same way, after the Holy Spirit comes upon you, your
spirit, that was dead, is revived. It too grows and can bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit lets you know about the sin, righteousness, and the judgment.
The Holy Spirit also helps you by moving your heart to cast off fleshly things, such as evil, sin and lawlessness. The Holy Spirit helps you change to live in righteousness. He leads you to continue your Christian life with the faith and the hope of going to Heaven.
To compare the Holy Spirit with a physical object, He is like a power generator. Electricity is produced as the generator works. The electricity is supplied to a light bulb for it to shine. The darkness goes away as the light comes. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit comes upon us and works, darkness that belongs to flesh goes away, and the things of the light, called the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit, are illuminated. However, we do not get the electricity and light just by having the generator, but the generator has to work.
God gave us the generator called the Holy Spirit, but it is we who have to make the Holy Spirit generator work. When we become full of the power of the Holy Spirit we can shine the things of the light, the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, we should always be awake and pray fervently to be full of the Holy Spirit, and do what pleases Him receiving His guidance. When we follow and act out the desire of the Holy Spirit diligently, we can bear fruits of the Holy Spirit quickly within the fullness of the Holy Spirit. However, there is another desire that hinders us from following the desire of the Holy Spirit, and it is the desire of flesh.
The desire of flesh and the desire of the Holy Spirit try to lead you in opposite directions. If you keep on following this desire of flesh, the Holy Spirit laments in you so that you feel uneasy in your heart. You lose the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and finally it gets harder and harder to follow the desire of the Holy Spirit. That is why it says in Galatians 5:16-17, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”
Therefore, you should follow the desire of the Holy Spirit being led by the Holy Spirit so that you can bear the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. But if you follow the desire of flesh
that tries to follow darkness, it will result in works of the flesh, which are sin and lawlessness.
Galatians 5:19-21 talks about the fruit of the works of the flesh, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
As said in Galatians 6:8, “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life,” if you follow the flesh, the result will be death, and if you follow the Holy Spirit, you will reap eternal life.
Therefore, you should, as children of God who are saved, sow for the Holy Spirit and follow the desire of the Holy Spirit so that you will bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit in you day by day. Now, let us examine each fruit of the Holy Spirit in detail.
