Are We Bearing Fruit?

Galatians 5:22-23

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.

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are expected to bear fruit as we walk in the Spirit of God. We need to have the “fruit” of the Spirit which is LOVE. With such fruit come the other elements of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Although the meaning of love had been so much distorted by the Devil in our culture today, believers know love in much different way – that is, the love of God we had experienced when we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. It wasn’t based on emotions or feelings, but based on faith on the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross.

How then can we have the buds of love in our life and make them bloom? As Jesus commanded, we need to love the LORD our GOD with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and love our neighbors as we love ourselves (Luke 10:27). We need to love other people without conditions. We may find it very hard because we are used to protecting ourselves and fighting back. But as the people were spitting, slapping, hitting, and cursing the Lord Jesus Christ while carrying the cross – He wasn’t thinking of getting back His Godly powers and struck them with bolts of lighting. Rather, He had compassion and saw the people as potential believers in Him – for they do not know what they were doing. I think that’s how we need to love other people too, we may find them very harsh, rude, mean, and indifferent – but they are potential believers and winners in Christ. Every person living and still breathing air is a potential believer in Christ – no matter how good or bad.

Loving other believers are hard as well, and still maybe harder because they already know the Lord and yet maybe behaving like unbelievers. Acts 20:28 says that we need to shepherd other believers, for they were bought by the blood of Jesus too and they are precious! Unfortunately, we are likened more often to a sheep, probably one of the dumbest animals, that when left on its own cannot survive. If we start lashing them out with our staff, then we are in fact lashing on the Lord Jesus Christ for they are in Him. We need to shepherd one another. Whatever we do to the least of our brothers, then we are in fact doing it to the Lord Jesus Christ.

If we really like to do something that is not bound by any law or regulation, which we always long for, then that is loving God and loving other people – as the Lord loved us. We need to reproduce the fruit of the Spirit.