Fruit of the Spirit

I love it when the Holy Spirit puts 2 and 2 together.

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Sunday's scripture was in Galatians about the Fruit of the Spirit. We discussed how the fruit of the Spirit is the result of walking in the Spirit. We found that there is indeed purpose to the order in which the fruit of the Spirit is listed. love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. They seem to build on each other starting with love and down the list. If at some point you are struggling with one of the list, perhaps you need to go back and check the list to see if the other fruit are being exemplified in your life.

^{Galatians 5: 22}But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.²⁵If we live by the Spirit,let us also walk by the Spirit.

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And then yesterday someone said something to the effect that God was working on patience in his life (don't we always tell each other not to pray for patience?). Something began niggling at the back of my mind or rather the Holy Spirit was poking me with His elbow.

So, early this morning both of these things came together as God woke me this morning:

If the fruit of the spirit are exactly that--the result of walking in the Spirit everyday--then isn't what we need to do is to focus on our relationship with God? The word surrender comes to mind (seems to be my "word of the year"). Instead of trying to be loving, trying to be joyful, trying to be at peace, trying to have patience, trying to be kind, trying to be good, trying to be faithful, trying to have self-control, perhaps the key is simply surrendering to God on a moment by moment basis. Loving God with all our heart so that surrender is not a chore. In fact surrendering becomes a delight when we give something to someone we dearly love.

I truly believe that God isn't really trying to teach us patience or that we are even supposed to pray for patience. I believe that God's greatest desire is for us to be able to love Him with every inch of our heart, with all our actions and with every word that comes out of our mouths. He tells us that if we do surrender ourselves to Him that all those "fruit" will flow out of us, that nothing will stand between us and His love for us.

The first fruit is love, therefore, we must surrender to God, to seek His heart, a heart that loves unconditionally and completely. When we do that we experience His joy, then His peace, then patience comes easily, kindness will flow out of us, we'll automatically "be good", faithfulness will be rich in our lives, and self-control--well it becomes a moot issue.

So, let us surrender to God so we can walk in the Spirit and have a veritable "fruit salad" exploding out of us today.